Marguerite de Navarre

Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549), queen of Navarre by marriage and sister of King Francis I of France, is remembered as one of the defining literary voices of the French Renaissance: a writer of prose and verse, a patron, and a figure whose devotional and moral writing sits closely beside courtly culture. In musical contexts she is encountered not as a composer of notated works but as an author whose French texts could circulate for reading, recitation, and later musical setting.