Adiu mes amors.

The composer's father († February 1489) was an unknown Hugo Isaac; the son called him "Hugo of Flanders". The early life of Henry Isaac, his musical education and possible teachers are not known. His training must have been excellent and, based on the dating of an early manuscript containing three motets, was already completed in the years before 1476. It is not known where Isaac worked before 1484. The earliest reliable evidence is the receipt of a payment dated 15 September 1484 to a "Hainrichen ysaac Componisten" at the Innsbruck court of Duke Sigismund the Minty Rich of Tyrol, where Paul Hofhaimer also worked. Isaac then travelled on to Florence, having been recruited by Lorenzo de' Medici for the cantori di San Giovanni singing group there. This group had to provide figural singing at the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Baptistery and the Church of Santissima Annunziata; Isaac's name accordingly appears in the payment vouchers there from 1 July 1485, for SS Annunziata from 1 October 1486. A close relationship with the Medici family can be assumed, since Lorenzo arranged for the composer to marry Bartolomea Bello (* 16 May 1464), the Medici children very probably received music lessons from Isaac, and Isaac set Lorenzo's carnival poems to music. In later years Lorenzo's son Giovanni, then as Pope Leo X, sought Isaac's retirement in Florence. Isaac lived in the San Lorenzo district, where the Medici Palace also stood. From 1 October 1491 to 30 April 1492, the composers Alexander Agricola, Johannes Ghiselin and the singer Charles de Launoy were colleagues of Henry Isaac.