Again one sings while Dioneo accompanies her on the lute.
Thus Boccaccio in his marvelous portraiture of the social life of his time has casually handed down to us invaluable facts about vocal and instrumental music.

There is no question that Ambros is fully justified in his conclusion that the _cantori a liuto_ were a well-marked class of musicians.

They were vocal soloists and often improvisatori, clearly differentiated from the cantori a libro, who were "singers by book and note" and who sang the polyphonic art music of the time.
It is pretty well established that the songs of Dante were everywhere known and sung.

We have reason to believe that many of those of Boccaccio were also familiar to the people.

We may also feel confident that when most of the Italian lute singers of the time had acquired sufficient skill to make their own poems as well as their own melodies, they followed the models provided in the verses of the great masters.
What is still more important for us to note is that these lyrics were strophical and that they were no further removed from the folk song of the era than the frottola was.