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140based on the use of seconds, existed in a local burial liturgy in Lombardy (see thediscussion in Ferand, 1939). At the same time (the end of the 15 th century) we haveanother very interesting piece of information about very specific two-part singing inMilan where instead of “correct” and accepted consonances of fifths and fourths, “thesharpest dissonances – major and minor seconds, ninths, and sevenths – predominate”(Ferand, 1939:314). This information is contained in the tractate Practica Musicae (1496)of the famous Italian music theorist Franchino Gafori. From this region today we haveonly late style part-singing, based on the use of consonant thirds and Europeanharmonies. Even the earlier source of the 1020s and 1030s, Guido d’Arezzo (in“Micrologue”, XIX) gives musical examples of polyphonic two-part singing with drone,with fourths and seconds between the parts:Ex. 80. Italy (Kartsovnik, 1988:28)It is very important to know that a similar kind of specific dissonant polyphonyhas been documented in contemporary central Italy. The central-eastern Italian regionsAbruzzi (east of Rome) and Marche (north of Abruzzi) feature two-part archaicpolyphony with the drone, small-range melodies and dissonant seconds in the specificgenre canto a vatoccu (“song in the manner of a bell clapper”).Ex. 81. Italy (Sorce Keller et al, 2000:607)The same style of two-part polyphony with narrow range and secondaldissonances is also known in Tuscany in western Italy. This style of polyphony here is aspecific genre canto a dispetto (“song of the despised”. Sorce Keller et al., 2000:610).Roberto Leydi noted the recent tendency towards an increase of choral performance inNorth Italy. For example, the solo performance of ballads has been replaced by choralperformances (Leydi, 1977).Only minor elements of polyphony (unison and heterophony) have been found inthe souther n part of Italy, or south of Naples. Solo singing dominates in this region.Polyphonyis seldom choral (in which participants join and try to blend), but instead isunison singing that borders on heterophony, or two or three parts carried by single voices(Sorce Keller et al., 2000:611). The singing style in southern Italy is very close to theMiddle Eastern Arabic singing style with a nasal timbre, embellished melodic line, andrubato (free) metre and rhythm.On the other hand, Sicily, which is considered a part of southern Italy, is verypolyphonic. Written sources testify to the presence of vocal polyphony in Sicily at leastfrom the 17 th ce ntury. According to Ignazio Macchiarella’s 2005 report on Sicilianpolyphony at the polyphonic conference in Vienna, vocal polyphony is known in more