Italian opera "Dafne" by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. Peri's works, however, did not arise out of a creative vacuum in the area of sung drama. An underlying prerequisite for the creation of opera proper was the practice of monody. Monody is the solo singing/setting of a dramatically conceived melody, designed to express the emotional content of the text it carries, which is accompanied by a relatively simple sequence of chords rather than other polyphonic parts. Italian composers began composing in this style late in the 16th century, and it grew in part from the long-standing
Jacopo d'Angelo School of Chrysoloras. At this school Chrysoloras would become one of the first people to teach the Greek language to Italians. Many scholars would flock to this school including Leonardo Bruni, an Italian scholar who would later become a famous humanist and Jacopo's rival. After a meeting between Jacopo and Chrysoloras, they decided to return to Constantinople in 1395. At the time of his arrival, the city was under siege by the Muslim Turks. There, Jacopo learned the Greek language and studied Ancient Greek texts. While in Constantinople, Jacopo met a scholar by the name of Manuel Calecas who was