The great creator of a new ecclesiastical style, the 'imitator of nature,' as Vincenzo Galilei styled him, the 'prince of music,' as his epitaph proclaimed him, lent his genius to an art, vacillating between mundane sensuality and celestial rapture, which, however innocently developed by him in the sphere of music, was symptomatic of the most unhealthy tendencies of his race and age.

While singing these madrigals and these motetts the youth of either sex were no longer reminded, it is true, of tavern ditties or dance measures.

But the emotions of luxurious delight or passionate ecstasy deep in their own natures were drawn forth, and sanctified by application to the language of effeminate devotion.
I have dwelt upon these two sets of compositions, rather than upon the masses of strictly and severely ecclesiastical music which Palestrina produced with inexhaustible industry, partly because they appear to have been extraordinarily popular, and partly because they illustrate those tendencies in art and manners which the sentimental school of Bolognese painters attempted to embody.

They belong to that religious sphere which the Jesuit Order occupied, governed, and administered upon the lines of their prescribed discipline.

These considerations are not merely irrelevant.