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Years after the period of the "Orfeo" of Poliziano independent instrumental forms had not yet been developed. Fully a century later compositions "da cantare e sonare" betray to us the fact that bodies of instruments performing without voices merely played the madrigals which at other times were sung.
Webster tells us that the word "Person" originated from the Latin word persona, meaning "a mask used by actors," which word in turn arose from two other words, per, meaning "through," and sonare, meaning "to sound," the two combined words meaning "to sound through." The same authority informs us that the archaic meaning of the word was "a character or part, as in a play; an assumed character."
These compositions were usually written for the harpsichord and perhaps three instruments of the viol order, the master himself playing the leading melody on the violin. He called them sonatas from sonare, to sound, a name originally applied to any piece that was sounded by instruments, not sung by the human voice.
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