It was feeling of this same kind that led the apostles of the Netherlands school and their Italian pupils to follow the physical trend of all Italian art rather than struggle to impose upon it the shackles of an uncongenial intellectuality forged in the canonic shops of Ockeghem and his disciples. The seed of beauty had been sown by the mighty Josquin des Pres what time he was a Roman singer and a Mantuan composer. The fruit blossomed in the Renaissance music of Willaert, Cyprian de Rore and others and came to its perfection in the later works of Palestrina and Lasso. The resistless operation of the tendencies of the school was such that at the close of the sixteenth century we are suddenly confronted with the knowledge that all the details of polyphony so studiously cultivated by the northern schools have in Italy suddenly been packed away in a thorough bass supporting one voice which is permitted to proclaim itself in a proud individuality. Yet if we permit ourselves to believe that the lyric solo made but a single spasmodic appearance in the "Orfeo" and had to be born again in the artistic conversion brought about by the labors of Galilei and Caccini, we shall be deceived. The fashion set by Poliziano's production was not wholly abandoned and throughout the remainder of the fifteenth and the whole of the sixteenth centuries there were productions closely related to it in style and construction. Not only is the slow assimilation of the mass of heterogeneous elements thrown together in these dramas not astonishing, but to the thoughtful student it must appear to be inevitable. On the one hand was the insatiable desire for voluptuous spectacle, for the lascivious pseudo-classicism of the pictorial dance, for the bewildering richness of movement which had originated in the earlier triumphal processions, and for the stupendous scenic apparatus made possible in the open air sacred plays. On the other was the widespread taste for part singing and the constantly growing skill of composers in adapting to secular ideas the polyphonic science of the church. Added to these elements was the imperative need of some method of imparting individuality of utterance to the principal characters in a play while at the same time strengthening their charm by the use of song.