ues between Corydon and Thyrsis and other pastoral
dainties. At the carnival of 1506 at Urbino, Castiglione and his friend
Cesare Gonzaga, of the great Mantuan family, recited the former's
"Tirsi," dialogues in verse. The two interpreters wore pastoral
costumes. The dialogue was couched in the customary pastoral phrase, but
it was made plain that fulsome flattery of living personages was
intended.[32] The musical numbers of which we can be certain were one
solo, sung by Iola, a chorus of shepherds and a morris dance.

[Footnote 32: "Poesie Volgari e Latine del Conte B. Castiglione."
Rome, 1760.]

The impulse which brought the "Orfeo" into being had not yet exhausted
itself and the Italians continued to feast their souls on a visionary
Arcadia with which they vainly strove to mingle their own present. But
love of luxurious display slowly transformed their pastorals into
glittering spectacles. As for the music, we may be certain that in the
beginning it followed the lines laid down in the "Orfeo." It rested
first on the basis of the frottola, but when the elegant and gracious
madrigal provided an art form better suited to the opulence of the
decorative features of the embryonic lyric drama, the madrigal became
the dominating element in the music. Together with it we find in time
the dance slowly assuming that shape which eventually became the
foundation of the suite.

Adrian Willaert became chapel master of St. Mark's in 1527 and his
influence in spreading the madrigal through Italy was so great that he
has been called, as we have already noted, the father of that form of
composition. Certain it is that, despite the earlier publications of
Petrucci, the madrigal became dominant in Italy after the advent of
Willaert. But we must not lose sight of the influence of Constanzo
Festa, the earliest great Italian writer of madrigals, whose first book
of these compositions (for three voices) was published in 1537. We are
therefore to understand that in the plays about to be mentioned the
madrigal style prevailed in the music.

In 1539 at the marriage of Cosimo I and Eleanora of Toledo there were
two spectacular performances. In the first Apollo appeared in company
with the muses. He sang stanzas glorifying the bride and her husband,
and the muses responded with a canzona in nine parts. Now the cities of
Tuscany entered, each accompanied by a symbolical procession, and sang
their praises to the bride. The second enterta