Jacopo da Bologna is one of the earliest polyphonic composers about whom we sort of know something. We have his portrait in the form of a miniature, which reveals he was not a man of the cloth like the average fourteenth century musician, but a layman, and that suits the music Jacopo left us, almost none of which is sacred. We know of some of his professional engagements and it is postulated that he was teacher to Francesco Landini, the leading light of the Italian trecento. We can read a treatise Jacopo wrote on music and note that he was the only composer to set a Petrarch sonnet to music whilst Petrarch himself still lived.