The oratory having increased, by the grace of God, with the coming together of prelates and of most important gentlemen, it seemed to me fitting in this second book to increase the harmony and the combination of parts, varying the music in diverse ways, now setting it to Latin words and now to the vernacular, sometimes with a greater number of voices and sometimes with fewer, with verses now of one kind and now of another, concerning myself as little as possible with imitations and complexities, in order not to obscure the understanding of the words.