=Italy the New Centre=.—Music developed in the Netherlands because of commercial supremacy and the consequent world association. We shall now see it pass to Italy, but because of a very different reason. From the earliest Christian days Italy was the centre of religious influence; it is only necessary to examine history to observe the ramifications of that power in England, France, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries. This influence, often more political than religious in character, gave to the Italian Church (then the Italian State), a predominance of authority, which was a great power in religious and secular thought. This influence spread to music for various reasons. We must remember that the school at Paris was controlled by the Church, that the Gallo-Belgic school owed its foundation to the same cause, and that the men of all three schools were employed as organists by the Church. It is true that in Italy the Church had not the broadening influence of commercial intercourse, but was more than compensated for that lack by what we may call artistic intercourse. The Church was the one stable institution in these times of war in which painters could find a refuge for their works, and from which patronage flowed in a steady stream to the ever-needy artists. Thus was caused and maintained the artistic atmosphere necessary to the cultivation of Music. As an art, the Church was the only support of artistic music. When Music originated it needed an institution to protect and foster it and safeguard its growth, and this it found in the Church; it repaid this protection by evolving a style eminently suited to the needs of the Church, but absolutely useless for the expression of secular and natural emotion. To this patronage of its peculiar art is due the importation into Italy of the best in music wherever found, to aid in these services. And so we find singers from the Netherlands engaged for the Church in Italy. This, and the fame of Italy as the home of superior singers, undoubtedly led the majority of those numerous Netherlandish masters to seek their homes abroad, and preferably in Italy. The fact that all music was vocal in style and that the Church was the only institution capable of supporting such a style, cannot be too strongly stated; for upon that depended not only the evolution of Music, but also the very life of the Polyphonic emotional style.