Verona where he met Count Mario Bevilacqua and attended the prestigious Accademia Filarmonica, one of the associations of musicians and humanists, dedicated to cultivating the most progressive trends, typical of the late Renaissance. Florence and return to Rome By the end of 1587, Marenzio had entered into the service of Ferdinando I de' Medici in Florence, where he stayed for two years. It is highly probable that he was already in the service of Ferdinando while the latter was still a cardinal living in Rome, and that he followed him to Florence when he succeeded to the granducal throne in 1587. It is hard to assess the influence of Florentine composers on Marenzio's music. According to Alfred Einstein, "...he cannot conceivably have come to terms with the Camerata and with its pedantic and pretentious dilettantism." But although Marenzio never ventured into solo song, as did Giulio Caccini and other Florentines, this did not prevent him from forming friendships with two Florentine dilettante composers, Piero Strozzi and Antonio de' Bicci. On November 30, 1589 Marenzio returned to Rome, where he served several patrons, while retaining considerable independence; he lived in the Orsini palace until 1593, in the service of Virginio Orsini, the nephew of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Another important patron at this time was Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini, nephew of the reigning Pope Clement VIII. This cardinal, who presided over an informal academy that gathered together men of letters and learning, assigned to Marenzio an apartment in the Vatican. In 1595 John Dowland came to Italy to meet Marenzio; the two had exchanged letters when Dowland was still in England. Dowland got as far as Florence, and indicated that he wanted to study with Marenzio, but it is not known if he did: the two may never have met. Poland Marenzio's final trip was a long one. He went to Poland in between late 1595 and early 1596, staying at least through October 1596, accepting a position as maestro di cappella at the court of Sigismund III Vasa in Warsaw; his predecessor, Annibale Stabile, had just died after only being there two months. While in Warsaw – the location of the court, recently moved from Kraków – Marenzio wrote and directed sacred music, including motets for double choir, a Te Deum for 13 voices, and a mass, the music for which has been lost. According to pre-20th-century writers, the trip