The credit of having introduced a new, fresh and enlivening element into the artistic attempts of the Bardi society is to be attributed chiefly to Giulio Caccini and Vincenzo Galilei. The former was a composer, a singer, and a writer on musical matters. He was generally considered to be the staunchest defender of the new art. In his much discussed work "Nuove Musiche," he places himself in the front rank of the battle and urgently demands the recognition of solo song, so heartily despised by the professional musicians of the time. Caccini, whose own singing gave his hearers intense delight, felt that this department of the art could never reach individual development while the Palestrina style of composition prevailed. He had little theoretical knowledge of music; but, following the example of Galilei, who was the first to use recitative in his musical productions, Caccini enlarged and improved this form, and sung his compositions to the Bardi society. His only accompaniment was the theorbo, a species of lute, but his efforts gained enthusiastic approval. From the small beginnings thus made he passed, in company with Galilei, to the composition of long dramatic scenes, the text being furnished by Count Bardi. This gave to the effort in the direction of reform a new and unexpected significance. Galilei's chief endeavor in his artistic experiments was to introduce the popular element into composition; for, as he insisted, music was not simply the scientific occupation of a few learned men, but belonged to the whole world. Hence, almost all his music is homophonous. No doubt unison vocal music, with little or no accompaniment, had been heard in the canzonetta, villanella, and other forms of popular melody, ages before the birth of Galilei. That the recognition of what we call now the "leading-note" as an essential element of melody was no new thing, may be gathered from the words of Zarlino, who, writing in 1558, says: "Even Nature herself has provided for these things; for not only those skilled in music, but also the contadini (peasants), who sing without any art at all, proceed by the interval of the semitone in forming their closes." The germs of this new element, destined to work one of the most sweeping revolutions known in the history of art, are evidently in all the early attempts of the monodists. In exchange for the contrapuntal glories of the sixteenth century, the composers of the seventeenth offered the graces of symmetrical form, hitherto unknown. The idea was not thrown away on their successors. It was not long before symmetrical form was cultivated in association with a new system, not of counterpoint, as it is sometimes erroneously called, but of part-writings based on the principles of modern harmony, and eminently adapted to the requirements of instrumental music. Thus, in such slight indications of regular phrasing, reiterated figures and prearranged plan as are shown in Caccini's unpretending