Not much is known about his early life. He was probably born in the Piedmont near Turin, but the evidence for this is not certain, being based mainly on later documents referring to him as a "clericis secularibus", i.e. not a monk, from that region. His birth date has been given as early as 1480 and as late as 1495, but recent scholarship has tended to narrow the range to the late 1480s. In addition he may have been related to his slightly younger contemporary Sebastiano Festa, another early madrigal composer, also from the same region. Sebastiano's father, Jacobinus, was resident in Turin around 1520.