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 handled imitatively, often with strictness and dexterity, but aiming constantly at beauty of effect rather than a show of learning. Properly a madrigal was based upon one of the mediæval modes, but with the gradual change of view about harmony usage tended toward the modern major or minor, with points of real modulation. In later examples the rhythmic side of the form became more definite, catching more or less of dance-movement. Many a license of treatment crept into the madrigal before it was accepted in stricter writing.

The historic importance of the madrigal is evident. It raised secular music to honor and afforded a chance for genius to exercise itself in fields otherwise untouched. Although essentially polyphonic, it really prepared the way for other vocal forms, even for dramatic monodies and arias, since it revealed the expressive possibilities of melody. The earliest attempts at dramatic construction were chains of madrigals, and in the early opera madrigals were long a usual feature. In both Germany and England it amalgamated with the true part-song, to the latter's great enrichment. On the other hand, it served as a step toward independent instrumental music, which at the outset was merely the transcription of what was written to be sung, but which presently set off on analogous lines of its own. Hence it is just to say that the madrigal was the 16th-century representative of what is now called chamber music (Riemann).

In a number of cases what were called madrigali spirituali were put forth—motets in a style that sought to bring into church services more of the warmth, flexibility and grace of secular music than had been customary. These prefigured the Protestant motets and anthems of Germany and England.

The origin of strong madrigal-writing was with the Venetians. Willaert is often named as the inventor, but it is impossible to say exactly who was the first writer in the form, since it was evolved gradually.

Among Petrucci's earlier collections (1502-8) were about 900 frottole by North Italian writers, largely from Verona and Padua. These slight works were the forerunners of the madrigal. Soon after 1530, madrigals proper begin to appear in print in rapidly increasing numbers, the leading writers entering the field in about this order: Willaert in 1519, Festa in 1531, Arcadelt in 1538, A. della Viola in 1539, Jhan Gero in 1542, De Rore in 1542, Lassus in 1552, De Monte and A. Gabrieli in 1554, Porta and Palestrina in 1555, Van Wert in 1558, Striggio in 1560, Annibale in 1562, Merulo and Caimo in 1564, G. Gabrieli in 1575?, G.M. Nanino in 1579, Marenzio in 1580, Monteverdi in 1583, Orazio Vecchi and G.B. Nanino in 1586, and the German Hassler in 1590. This list gives but a hint of the magnitude of the subject, since almost every active writer in Italy was a madrigalist, and the fertility of several of them was enormous.