Why was this? How could an art-form, which had caught the very essence of the modern song, thus sell its birthright for a mess of pottage? Reason enough. The mess of pottage was very attractive. For the monodic experiments of the Florentines were the play-things of a set of dilettantes. They were artificial and exotic. They had consciously no use for the true musical tradition, the folk-song, which was living and throbbing among the people. The body was there but the soul was missing. The Florentines were chiefly interested in decorating the lives of the aristocracy, in arranging court masques and private theatricals. Aristocracy is always weak when it exists in opposition to and at the expense of the life of the people, as it did in the decadence of Renaissance Italy. The art which such an aristocracy produces may be brilliant, but it is empty. It tinkles and it clatters, but it does not resound. For the isolated aristocrat is not interested in humanity, but in his own glorification. The joys and sorrows of the people are repulsive to him: he seeks to escape sorrows, and he longs for some more highly colored joys. He floats on the surface of life as he floats on the surface of society. His art tends to become the maximum of show and the minimum of meaning. So when the aristocracy of the time discovered the new monodic style, it sought to make use of it for theatrical entertainment, neglecting the more human and personal song. Vocal coloratura provided aristocracy with precisely the thing it had unconsciously been seeking--the maximum of show and the minimum of meaning. The skilled singers of the time caught the trick of introducing impromptu embellishments on the simple monodic recitative. Monteverdi hit upon the device which would give such coloratura singing a centre of gravity--the _da capo_ form. Monody as heightened speech was wholly forgotten, except for the debased _recitativo secco_, which bridged the gaps between arias, and tinsel opera became the furore of the leisured class. The middle class of Italy, becoming prosperous in business and always anxious to ape its betters, flocked to these entertainments as soon as large opera houses began to spring up, and opera as an institution overshadowed all other musical forms. The oratorio, presumably devotional in spirit, became no less debased in its display. Song, as a great art-form, was strangled for another century or two, receiving no new ideals and serving as a mere diversion for composer and singer. Thus does the easy convenience of abstract form often stifle poetic expression.