“Petit motets” were described as such in France because they called for neither an orchestra nor a choir. Beginning in the 1640s, they were heard, sung by the finest voices, in all of the religious houses in the kingdom. Exquisitely refined, the genre maintained close ties with the sensuality of Italian art, as evidenced by the motets of French composers—by birth or by adoption—Dumont, Danielis, Lorenzani, and Lully, which are similar to those of their counterparts Nanino, Giamberti, and Branca.