The second and more powerful incentive that instrumentation received was from monody, in connection with which its function as accompaniment in simplified form was demonstrated. The _fons et origo_ of declamatory recitative are, of course, to be traced to the attempted reforms of the Florentine camerata. Monody was the cradle of opera and oratorio, and became in turn the foster child of her progeny. Now these histrionic roots were diversified and far reaching. In the first place, during the two centuries preceding the era under discussion, the miracle plays and representations of similar purport had had recourse to musical support, though of a nature disjointed and irrelevant. Secondly, the efforts of the troubadours, minstrels, and minnesingers embodied solo-singing to instrumental accompaniment, and contained elements of the dramatic. Lastly, a newly awakened veneration for everything pertaining to classic Greece revealed the nobility of her drama. This was the _causa vera_ to be espoused! And the evolution of this renaissance, which reached a climax in 1600, must be traced to the history of the Medici. Toward the close of the fifteenth century, when three generations of that family had brought Florence to the height of her glory, art had received a new impulse under the fostering care of Lorenzo. Moreover, science had acquired the doctrines of the Greek scholars fleeing from Turkish oppression. And the brief interim of asceticism under the sway of the Dominican monk, Savanarola, was followed by the restoration to power of the Medici. A non-clerical influence in all matters pertaining to art made itself felt, and the founding of the Platonic Academy by Cosimo the Great added fuel to the already existing predilection for the drama as exploited by the Ancients. Hence the aim of the amateur poet and composer, Bardi, and his coterie was to produce a drama which should faithfully conform to the purity and idealism of classic models. And they sought diligently for a clue to original renditions of Attic tragedy, the Dorian choral lyrics, the song-lyrics of Anacreon, Sappho. But their conception thereof was based on a fallacy, so that were one to judge the fruits of their labors solely for their intrinsic value, the verdict would be disappointing.