The dialogue was couched in the customary pastoral phrase, but it was made plain that fulsome flattery of living personages was intended.[32] The musical numbers of which we can be certain were one solo, sung by Iola, a chorus of shepherds and a morris dance.
[Footnote 32: "Poesie Volgari e Latine del Conte B.Castiglione." Rome, 1760.] The impulse which brought the "Orfeo" into being had not yet exhausted itself and the Italians continued to feast their souls on a visionary Arcadia with which they vainly strove to mingle their own present.

But love of luxurious display slowly transformed their pastorals into glittering spectacles.

As for the music, we may be certain that in the beginning it followed the lines laid down in the "Orfeo." It rested first on the basis of the frottola, but when the elegant and gracious madrigal provided an art form better suited to the opulence of the decorative features of the embryonic lyric drama, the madrigal became the dominating element in the music.

Together with it we find in time the dance slowly assuming that shape which eventually became the foundation of the suite.
Adrian Willaert became chapel master of St.Mark's in 1527 and his influence in spreading the madrigal through Italy was so great that he has been called, as we have already noted, the father of that form of composition.

Certain it is that, despite the earlier publications of Petrucci, the madrigal became dominant in Italy after the advent of Willaert.