It was the song of the people touched by the culture of the church.

It was the priestly art of cathedral music transferred to the service of human emotion.
The Italian madrigal had a specifically Italian character.

It followed the path of sensuous dalliance trod by the people of Boccaccio's tales.
It differentiated itself from the secular song of the northern musicians as clearly as the architecture of Venice distinguished itself from all other Gothic art.

Even in that era those characteristics which subsequently defined the racial and temperamental differences between the musical art of northern Europe and that of Italy were fully perceptible.

The north moved steadily toward instrumental polyphony, Italy toward the individual utterance of the solo voice.