Apart from the bare outline, little is known of the life of Odet de Turnèbe. He studied law at Toulouse in 1571-72, and was later received as a lawyer by the Parlement de Paris. In addition to French poems, he wrote odes and sonnets in Italian and Spanish for the salon of the celebrated Madeleine des Roches. Odet de Turnèbe died of a fever in July, 1581, at the age of twenty-eight.