Then and then only was the time for revolt and the revolt came.
In the meanwhile we may remark that the intense theatricalism of opera ought never to be a source of astonishment to any one who has studied the history of its origins.

The supreme trait of the lyric drama of the fifteenth and sixteenth century was its spectacular quality.

The reforms of Galilei and Caccini were, as we shall see, aimed at this condition.
Their endeavors to escape the contrapuntal music of the madrigal drama were the labors of men consciously confronting conditions which had been surely, if not boldly, moving toward their own rectification.

The madrigal opera was intrinsically operatic, but it was not yet freed from the restrictions of impersonality from which its parent, the polyphony of the church, could not logically rid itself even with the aid of a Palestrina's genius.

We must then follow this line of later development..