No equivocation is possible.

It is a simultaneously played chord held by four voices for a whole measure.

What is certain is that Palestrina, by putting aside the rules, made a discovery, the significance of which he did not realize.
With the introduction of the seventh interval a new era began.

It would be a grave error to believe that the rules were overturned, for, instead, new principles were added to old ones as new conditions demanded.

They learned how to modulate, how to transpose from one key to the next key and finally to the keys farthest away.