Life
He was from Villafranca Sabauda in the Italian province of Piedmont, not far from Turin; his father, named Jacobinus, was a musician resident in Turin in the 1520s. Jacobinus was likely Festa's teacher. While it is tempting to suggest that he was the younger brother or other relation of the much more famous Costanzo Festa, since they were from the same region, had similar musical acumen and both wrote madrigals, no direct evidence of this has emerged. Sebastiano first appears in the record in a manuscript copied between 1516 and 1519, possibly as the copyist: the document contains motets both by himself and Costanzo.
He lived and worked in Rome in the early 1520s, with the Genoese aristocrat Ottobono Fieschi as his patron, and he worked with other musicians connected with Pope Leo X. Festa had been a singer in the Sistine Chapel choir since 1517, so both Festas may have come to Rome at approximately the same time. Sebastiano received a canonicate at Turin Cathedral in 1520, but he died at Rome on 31 July 1524.
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