The rapid expansion of the florid element in the polyphonic music of the composers indicates to us that the improvised descant of the singer had a sensible influence.

We need not be astonished, then, to learn that long before the end of the sixteenth century a very considerable knowledge of what was later systematized as the so-called "Italian method" had been acquired.

The registers of head and chest were understood, breathing was studied, the hygiene of the voice was not a stranger, and vocalizes on all the vowels and for all the voices had been written.

Numerous singers had risen to note, and the records show that their distinction rested not only on the beauty of their voices and the elegance of their singing, but also on their ability to perform those instrumental feats which have from that time to this been dear to the colorature singer and to the operatic public.
In the closing years of the sixteenth century we find that the famous singers were heard not oftener in public entertainments than in private assemblies.

Occasionally a madrigal arranged as a solo figured in a lyric play, but the singing of madrigals for one voice was a popular field for the exhibition of the powers of celebrated prima donnas such as Vittoria Archilei and eminent tenors like Jacopo Peri.
Kiesewetter[35] gives a madrigal sung as a solo by Archilei.