Italy has for three centuries been deficient in art-songs, but she has produced a certain amount of lyric music which the student will discover and sing gladly from time to time, and a few of her song-writers should be mentioned here. Giuseppe Mercadante (1795-1870) was primarily an opera composer, but, unlike most of the Italian opera writers, produced a goodly number of songs. These are simple and florid, possessed of a certain Italian charm, but on the one hand too thin to rank as true interpretative music, and on the other somewhat too operatic to convey a simple lyrical sentiment. However, his vogue was great and he may be considered the originator of the modern Italian song tradition. The continuer of the tradition was Luigi Gordigiani (1806-1860), a peasant boy who showed marked talent for music and carried into his work a feeling for folk-song which was new to Italian music at the time. He was one of the first native collectors of folk-music and one of the first to appreciate it. He is known almost solely as a song-writer, and so popular have his songs become and so firmly have they remained in people’s hearts that he has with some justice been called ‘the Italian Schubert.’ However, we must not be from this led to suppose that he had anything like Schubert’s richness of melodic inspiration, musical resource, or genuine dramatic power. His songs are in every case supplied with the simplest accompaniment and in form do not go much beyond the folk-songs which are their model. They have a certain freedom, a development which is typical of the art-song rather than the folk-song. But their materials are of the simplest, and with their technical sameness and their general melancholy tinge they tend toward monotony. Among the loveliest of his songs is _La Bianchina_, a melody of much sweetness cast in the strophic form. _Il Tempo Passato_ shows more energy and passion than is usual in Gordigiani. Some of his religious songs are effective, especially _O Sanctissima Vergine Maria_, which is said to have been admired by Chopin. We should mention also Gordigiani’s waltz songs, which are brilliant and effective without becoming cheap. Another Italian song writer, and one better known in foreign lands than Gordigiani, is Ciro Pinsuti (1829-1888), whose output was immense. He exemplifies Italian grace and suavity and imparted to his part-songs in particular a beauty which has carried them to singing societies the world over.