 The "anti-nationalists" (as they were sometimes known) rejected Rameau's style, which they felt was too precious and too distanced from emotional expression, in favour of what they saw as the simplicity and "naturalness" of the Italian opera buffa, best represented by Pergolesi's "La serva padrona".Their arguments would exert a great deal of influence over French opera in the second half of the eighteenth century, particularly over the emerging form known as "opéra comique".