In art-loving Venice an especially brilliant group of madrigalists appeared who brought added renown and honor to this centre of culture and learning. Adrian Willaert, one of the many gifted migratory Netherlanders, was the first to make the Venetians acquainted with this form, of distinctly northern origin, and its popularity quickly spread all over Italy. Under Italian influences the severity of its melodic outlines softened and it readily responded to the national love of color and warmth. While Willaert can no longer be called the ‘Father of the Madrigal,’ he was one of the first strong writers in the madrigal-form, and his transplantation of it from Flanders to sunny Italy gave to it just the genial quality needed to bring it to full maturity. He was especially influential in developing a freer style and a taste for chromaticism. This tendency found strongest accentuation in the ‘Chromatic Madrigals’[38] of Ciprian de Rore (1516-1565). He published five books of these and, while many were in the nature of experiments, they served to prepare the way for the mastery of chromatic elements so conspicuous in later composers. His madrigals, written in an original and genial style of great richness, enjoyed enormous popularity. Giovanni Croce paid homage to the spirit of the times in a notable collection of humorous part-songs (_Triaca musicale_, _Capricci_) for from four to seven voices. The Gabrielis were also generous contributors to the development of the madrigal, which, in its adopted home in Italy, attained its fairest and most luxuriant flowering.