ABSTRACT
To make up for the lack of background description of Monteverdi in his youth, people find some help in the printing of the composer's Sacrae Cantiunculae. On the whole there are few texts that Monteverdi may have gotten from composers known to him and nearby; mostly he either must have drawn on some local poet or made use of one of the numerous collections of verse then in circulation. The texts selected by Monteverdi, whether Tasso's or those of his imitators, abound in the favorite imagery of flowers, vermilion colors, gems and stars, laughter and song, snares and chains, sprites and flying kisses. From Prunieres to Alfred Einstein the idea has been spread in literature on Monteverdi that the advent of the continuo in Monteverdi's madrigals marks the beginning of a transition from the madrigal to the cantata, for which Monteverdi is held to be one of those mainly responsible.
