This book, devoted to the thorough-bass in Italy, focusses on the first years of the seventeeth century and offers the treatises and writings of Cavalieri, Viadana, Agazzari, Bianciardi, Banchieri and Sabbatini.

The beginnings of the basso continuo was followed by many publications. The composer’s advices on playing or figuring appear often in prefaces to their collections of musical pieces, mainly motets.

This technique is linked to the invention of recitative and accompanied monody in Fi...