It is not easy to trace Monteverdi's musical apprenticeship reliably, for the facts are scanty. In his published volumes up to the Second Book of Madrigals (1590) he merely describes himself as the ‘disciple’ (discepolo) of the composer Marcantonio Ingegneri, maestro di cappella of Cremona Cathedral; later, he looks back to Ingegneri as a respected composer of the old school. But many of his works, up to and beyond the Second Book, are modelled on works by composers of his own and earlier generations, sometimes well outside the range of Ingegneri's musical language, and he seems also to have used modelling to alter and renew musical style in general. The music of these early books, and of their models, thus represents the only surviving evidence of Monteverdi's musical education; and the latter can, therefore, be traced only through musical analysis.

At this period, the use of models was prompted by rhetorical and educational principles. And so Monteverdi's early compositions may support three hypothetical reconstructions: first, of some aspects of his musical education (perhaps under Ingegneri's guidance, if it was Ingegneri who had the generosity to recommend the young composer to imitate most of the available models, old and new); second, of some of the processes by which musical style evolved at this period; and third, perhaps the most important, of some of the aesthetic implied by Monteverdi's works.