Their quest was vague and visionary.

Nothing remained of Greek or Roman music.
To guide these explorers, there was only a dim instinct that the ancients had declaimed dramatic verse with musical intonation.

But, as the alchemists sought the philosopher's stone, and founded modern chemistry; as, according to an ancient proverb, they who search for silver find gold; so it happened that, from the pedantic and ill-directed attempts of this academy proceeded the system on which the modern Oratorio and Opera were based.

What is noticeable in these experiments is, that a new form of musical expression, declamatory and continuous, therefore dramatic, as opposed to the lyrical and fugal methods of the contrapuntists, was in process of elaboration.

Claudio Monteverde, who may be termed the pioneer of _recitativo_, in his opera of _Orfeo_; Giacomo Carissimi, in whose _Jephtha_ the form of the Oratorio it already outlined, were the most eminent masters of the school which took its origin in the Florentine Academy of the Palazzo Vernio.
To pursue the subject further, would be to transgress the chronological limits of my subject.