A cappella is a term describing choral singing without instrumental accompaniment. A cappella, or alla cappella, is an Italian phrase meaning "in the chapel style." Some music historians believe that a cappella originally described the unaccompanied choral singing that took place in the Sistine Chapel, in the Vatican in Rome, during the 1500's. The singers were performing music by composers such as Giovanni Palestrina (see Palestrina, Giovanni). However, composers such as Josquin Desprez had been writing music for unaccompanied voices in the late 1400's. For hundreds of years, the term referred only to unaccompanied sacred music, such as motets (a vocal composition intended for use in a church service). However, since the 1800's, a cappella has been used to describe all types of unaccompanied choral or group singing of both religious and nonreligious works.