Claudio Monteverdi dedicated his Selva morale e spirituale (1641) to Eleanora Gonzaga, who was not only married to the Holy Roman Emperor, but was the daughter of Monteverdi's longtime patron the Duke of Mantua. The huge and varied collection of sacred music bears ties to a wide array of musical styles and forms, representing as it does nearly 30 years of Monteverdi's musical career. In the case of one piece, the third setting of the Vesper Psalm Confitebor tibi Domine, Monteverdi even includes a rubric indicating its style: alla francese. That designation gives helpful and specific links to similar rubrics in other compositions of his, though Monteverdi's precise definition of "the French style" remains unclear. His 1607 publication of the Scherzi musicali a tre voci suggests in its introduction that he brought a musical style alla francese to Italy from the North in 1599. Some historians have even tied Monteverdi's "French" style to Baïf's academic and text-driven musique mensurée a l'antique. It seems more likely, however, that the composer merely intended to imitate French styles of singing: two pieces in his eighth book of madrigals instruct the performers to sing "with a full voice, in the French manner." Both of the these madrigals, and the Confitebor tibi III, feature similar contrasts of vocal textures.

Monteverdi's Confitebor terzo, in fact, gives some evidence for both interpretations of the "French style." Structurally, this setting of the Psalm text follows a series of unambiguous shifts of vocal textures, specially highlighting the contast between a solo soprano and full four- or five-voiced choir (as in the two eighth book madrigals). This textural contrast is set up at the outset, as the first Psalm verse appears twice—once with solo soprano and basso continuo, a second time in full choral textures (possibly further supported by four stringed instruments). Duo textures and full tuttis continue to alternate until the concluding doxology ("Gloria patri"), when the solo voice once again sings the melody first, this time beginning with extremely florid ornamentation and a nearly operatic style; a concluding repeat of the opening music follows. Yet through all these permutations, some possible vestiges of Baïf's "measured music" also echo. The entire psalm proceeds in short and regular phrases, with predictable four-square harmonic motion supporting text-driven eighth-note rhythms in the melodic voices. Whichever of these stylistic features reflected French practice to Monteverdi, he masterfully shaped them to his own ends.

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