The last quarter of the sixteenth century witnessed the culmination of pure choral music in the works of Palestrina, Lasso, Marenzio, and their fellows. It also witnessed the beginnings of a new movement, which amounted to no less than a complete artistic revolution.

About this time a certain group of artistic and musical enthusiasts entered into speculations on the possibility of developing a new kind of musical art, in the form of solo music with instrumental accompaniment. Their central idea was to revive the style of performance of the ancient Greek dramas; and in connection with this they made experiments in the musical declamation of sonnets and poems of various kinds.

The most prominent of those who took part in the earliest stages of the movement were Vincenzio Galilei, the father of the famous philosopher and physicist; Emilio del Cavaliere, a composer; Rinuccini, a poet; Giulio Caccini, a singer and composer; Jacopo Peri, a musical amateur of ability and taste; and Giovanni Bardi, Count of Vernio, in whose house at Florence they used frequently to meet. The first recorded examples of their experiments were three Pastorals by Cavaliere, called “Il Satiro’ (1590), “La disperazione di Fileno” {1590), and “Il giuoeo della cieca” (1595). These were looked upon as containing the first successful examples of recitative, with the invention of which Cavaliere is accordingly sometimes credited. They were followed by the drama “Dafne,” which was written by Rinuccini and set by Peri in 1597.