Summary The volume explores the long-lasting phenomenon of basso continuo in the Italian peninsula, from its origins ? i.e. from the «regole per suonare sopra il basso» which collects and develops the contrappunto alla mente's legacy ? up to the late partimento pedagogy. In addition to a bibliographic update, the volume presents case studies providing the reader with new information on performative contexts and performance practice between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, and shedding new lights on sacred and secular genres and repertoires cultivated in churches, theatres, academies, noble chambers and domestic environments. Particular attention is given to the relationship between counterpoint, improvisation and instrumentation, to the analysis of primary sources in relation to book formats and the type of notation chosen to convey the accompaniment. Furthermore, a few chapters focus on peculiar issues of accompaniment pedagogy according to unpublished or neglected sources. TABLE OF CONTENTS Marcello Mazzetti, Introduction Performance Practice Issues: Stylistic Features and Historical Contexts 1. Naomi Matsumoto, Realising Arianna: The Problematic Accompaniments of Claudio Monteverdi's «Lamento d'Arianna» 2. Galliano Ciliberti, La pratica del basso continuo a S. Luigi dei Francesi a Roma nel Seicento 3. Giulia Nuti, Antonio Vivaldi's Use of Figures: «Per li coglioni» and Other Examples Sources, Formats, and Accompaniment Layout: Stylistic Features and Historical Contexts 4. Augusta Campagne, Basso Continuo: The Beginnings in Italy 5. Thomas Neal, Between Practice and Print: Performing Palestrina's «Missarum liber quartus» (1582) with Alessandro Nuvoloni's «basso prencipale co'l soprano» (1610) 6. Marina Toffetti, Fossil Traces of Vanished Voices: The Basso Continuo Part and the Reconstruction of Incomplete Polyphony 7. Marcos Krieger, Figured Bass and Figured Melody: Printed Figures in Italian Continuo Sources and Idiosyncratic Continuo Notation Practices as Found in Three 17th Century Italian Prints The Accompaniment between Pedagogy and Performance 8. Catherine Bahn - Giovanna Barbati, The Partimenti of Rocco Greco: Reconstructing the Pedagogical Tradition for the Early Violoncello 9. Peter van Tour, The Teaching of Counterpoint and Partimento in the School of Francesco Feo 10. Eric Boaro, Partimento Teaching at the Convent of Santi Marcellino e Festo in Naples: New Early Eighteenth-Century Sources of Realisations of Partimenti by Francesco Durante (c. 1707-1715) 11. Marco Pollaci, Vincenzo Bellini's «Studio del Contrappunto» Notebook: An Investigation of a New Source of Partimento and Counterpoint in Early Nineteenth-Century Italy Fundamental Issues: Counterpoint, Improvisation and Instrumentation 12. Edoardo Bellotti, Basso continuo e contrappunto nelle fonti seicentesche: un moderno approccio alla didattica musicale 13. Livio Ticli, «Contrapunto alla mente» or Basso Continuo? Agostino Agazzari and His «Sonare sopra'l Basso» Abstracts and Biographies Index of Names