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In the mid-16th century, counterpoint – now no longer the abstract and self-referential art of good voice leading – entered the orbit of musica poetica, the form of music in which the communicative element was emphasized: by the very imitation of the concept contained in the words, music now gained the power to lend a sensually perceivable soul to the resounding numbers, the rational component of the composition. Of course such poetically conceived music had to be vocal music; and the madrigal became the genre in which the perfect balance between ratio and sensus, between rationality and sensuality, could be struck. 
Written and visual sources testify that the practice of combining vocal lines and instruments was common when performing polyphonic works. Long before the rise of accompanied monody, the practice of ‘concerted’ madrigals had translated the theoretic concept of musica poetica into practical performance formulas which did justice to the intelligibility of words and texts. The combination of a solo vocal line and accompaniment by a consort of viols seems ideal in order to render the text completely and intelligibly, while keeping the sound structure of polyphony intact at the same time.