Divas in the convent : nuns, music, and defiance in seventeenth-century Italy
"When eight-year old Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana (1590-1662) entered one of the preeminent convents in Bologna in 1598, she had no idea what cloistered life had in store for her. Thanks to clandestine instruction from a local maestro di cappello - and despite the church hierarchy's vehement opposition to all convent music - Vizzana became the star of the convent, composing works so thoroughly modern and expressive that a recent critic described them as "historical treasures." Craig A. Monson recalls the story of Vizzana and her feloow nuns at Santa Cristina to elucidate the role that music played in the lives of these cloistered women. Gifted singers, instrumentalists, and composers, these nuns used music not only to forge links with the community beyond convent walls but also to defy ecclesiastical authority - from archbishops in Bologna to cardinals in Rome, and even the pope himself. In restoring the musically gifted Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana to history, Monson introduces readers to the full range of captivating characters who played their parts in seventeenth-century convent life."--Colleen Reardon, University of California, Irvine - P. [4] cover
Print Book, English, 2012
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2012
History
xxiv, 272 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
9780226535197, 0226535193
752471713
Praeludium: putting nun musicians in their place
Donna Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana of Santa Cristina della Fondazza
Lucrezia Vizzana's musical apprenticeship
Musical and monastic disobedience in Vizzana's Componimenti musicali
Hearing Lucrezia Vizzana's voice
Troubles in an earthly paradise: "It began because of music"
Voices of discord at Santa Cristina
Losing battles with a bishop: "We cared for Babylon, and she is not healed"
A gentler means to a bitter end
"Pomp indecent for religious observance and modesty"
Another bishop, another battle, a different outcome
A last battle and an uneasy peace
Coda
Revised edition of Disembodied voices