quinia Molza, a poet and court lady, which caused
her to go into retirement. De Wert continued to live in Mantua and his
last book of madrigals was published in Venice, September 10, 1591. He
must have died soon afterward. Between 1558 and 1591 he put forth ten
books of madrigals, generally for five voices, though toward the end he
sometimes composed for six or seven. He was the author also of some
motets, and Luca Marenzio, who brought the madrigal style to its most
beautiful development and whose influence molded the methods of the
English glee and madrigal writers, is believed to have been his pupil
for a short time. Marenzio unquestionably lived for some months in
Mantua, where according to Calvi[9] he completed his studies under the
guidance of the Duke.

[Footnote 9: "Scena Letteraria degli Scrittori Bergamaschi," per
Donato Calvi. Bergamo, 1664.]

Of Alessandro Striggio and his art work at the court of Mantua and
elsewhere special mention will be made in another part of this work.
Moreover it is not necessary that anything should be said here of the
epoch-making creations of Claudio Monteverde, who was long in the
Gonzaga service and who produced his "Orfeo" at Mantua. Sufficient has
been set forth in this chapter to give some estimate of the importance
and activity of Mantua as a literary and musical center. The culture of
the age was confined almost exclusively to churchmen, professors,
literary laborers and the nobility. The long line of musical and
dramatic development followed at Mantua had no relation to the general
art life of the Italian people. But its importance in its preparation
for the birth of the art form finally known as opera is not easily
overestimated, especially when we remember that this form did not become
a public entertainment till 1637. It was at Mantua that Angelo
Poliziano's "Orfeo," the first lyric drama with a secular subject, was
produced, and it must be our next business to examine this work and set
forth the conditions under which it was made known.

CHAPTER IV

The Artistic Impulse

The non-existence of the drama in the Middle Ages is one of the
strikingly significant deficiencies of the period. The illiterate
condition of the people, and even of the nobility, the fragmentary state
of governments, the centralizing of small and dependent communities
around the feet of petty tyrants, the frequency of wars large and small,
and the devotion of men to skill in the