The significant difference relates to their texts – parodying the Italian spoken by African slaves in Italy.
The French singer and printer Antonio Barrè can claim the distinction of publishing the first known examples of moresche as partsongs in his Secondo libro delle muse a tre voci: canzoni moresche di diversi autori (Rome 1555).
The Neapolitan moresca à 3 appeared only "after the canzone villanesca alla napolitana à 3 had gained a secure foothold"[4] and can be considered a development of the villanesca from bucolic to more raucous subject matter; in text, language and musical idiom.
Chronologically, moresche belong the last years of Renaissance polyphonic song before monody and Baroque polyphony, and also on the cusp of change from the dominance in Italy of Flemish masters such as Adrian Willaert to native Italians such as Andrea Gabrieli.
Other similarly derived words include Blackamoor, Kammermohr, Matamoros, Maure, Mohr im Hemd, Moresca, Moresque, Moreška, Morianbron, Morisco, Moros y cristianos, and Morris dance.