Divine Comedy in 1300 that the common language (his was called "Tuscan" and not "Italian" until as late as the 18th century) could be a vehicle for fine literature. Logically, that extended to the lyrics of the songs that people sang. Two points are worth mentioning in this regard: (1) we know much more about the words of songs than we know about the actual sound of the music. Words were written down with much more ease than melodies were notated. (See musical notation). Thus, we know that there was a vibrant troubador tradition in the 12th century in the Provence in their language and we know that 1000 miles away on the island of Sicily there was also a vibrant troubador tradition at the Hohenstaufen court of Frederick II, songs sung in the dialect of the people (very much influenced, for example, by Arabic), but it is conjecture as to exactly what either one sounded like. We only know that southern French folk music, today, sounds quite a bit different from Sicilian folk music. Since folk music is relatively conservative in that it resists rapid change, we may assume that at least some of the obvious differences in melody, scales and approach to vocalising that exist now, existed then. The call and response nature of much popular choral singing in the Middle Ages—that is, a soloist singing a line that is then answered by a group—found its way into medieval church music as a way of involving all members of the congregation. The complicated polyphonies of what is called the Ars Nova began to be heard in the 14th century and 15th century; popular items such as madrigals employed increasing dense overlays of different melodies sung at the same time, the point being to create an interwoven and euphonious texture of sound; this is NOT the same as harmony, the sounding of many notes together in order to form a chord. That is a later invention. Nevertheless, the move from the monophonic sounds of chants to the many simultaneous melodies of polyphony does represent a revolution in our musical perceptions: to wit, you can have more one thing sounding at the same time and still find it pleasant to listen to. The Renaissance Most people do not think of music when they hear the term Renaissance. Yet, in the same sense that architects, painters, and sculptors of the 16th