Divas In The Convent

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 cappella—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.” But at the very moment when Vizzana’s works appeared in 1623—she would be the only Bolognese nun ever to publish her music—extraordinary troubles beset her and her fellow nuns, as episcopal authorities arrived to investigate anonymous allegations of sisterly improprieties with male members of their order. Craig A. Monson retells the story of Vizzana and the nuns of 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 challenge and circumvent ecclesiastical authority. Monson explains how the sisters of Santa Cristina—refusing to accept what the church hierarchy called God’s will and what the nuns perceived as a besmirching of their honor—fought back with words and music, and when these proved futile, with bricks, roof tiles, and stones. These women defied one Bolognese archbishop after another, cardinals in Rome, and even the pope himself, until threats of excommunication and abandonment by their families brought them to their knees twenty-five years later. By then, Santa Cristina’s imaginative but frail composer literally had been driven mad by the conflict. Monson’s fascinating narrative relies heavily on the words of its various protagonists, on both sides of the cloister wall, who emerge vividly as imaginative, independent-minded, and not always sympathetic figures. 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.

Monson retells the story of Vizzana and the nuns of Santa Cristina to elucidate the role that music played in the lives of these cloistered women. Monson explains how the sisters fought back with words and music, and when these proved futile, with bricks, roof tiles, and stones.

Fresh and innovative takes on the dissemination of music in manuscript, print, and, now, electronic formats, revealing how the world has experienced music from the sixteenth century to the present. This collection of essays examines the diverse ways in which music and ideas about music have been disseminated in print and other media from the sixteenth century onward. Contributors look afresh at unfamiliar facets of the sixteenth-century book trade and the circulation of manuscript and printed music in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. They also analyze and critique new media forms, showing how a dizzying array of changing technologies has influenced what we hear, whom we hear, and how we hear. The repertoires considered include Western art music -- from medieval to contemporary -- as well as popular music and jazz. Assembling contributions from experts in a wide range of fields, such as musicology, music theory, music history, and jazz and popular music studies, Music in Print and Beyond: Hildegard von Bingen to The Beatles sets new standards for the discussion of music's place in Western cultural life. Contributors: Joseph Auner, Bonnie J. Blackburn, Gabriela Cruz, Bonnie Gordon, Ellen T. Harris, Lewis Lockwood, Paul S. Machlin, Roberta Montemorra Marvin, Honey Meconi, Craig A. Monson, Kate van Orden, Sousan L. Youens. Roberta Montemorra Marvin teaches at the University of Iowa and is the author of Verdi the Student -- Verdi the Teacher (Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani, 2010) and editor of The Cambridge Verdi Encyclopedia (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Craig A. Monson is Professor of Musicology at Washington University (St Louis, Missouri) and is the author of Divas in the Convent: Nuns, Music, and Defiance in Seventeenth-Century Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2012).

"It was mid-December 1610 in Mexico City. The Church was in its preparatory season of Advent, leading up to the celebration of Christ's birth at Christmas. The nuns of the Encarnacion convent had just celebrated the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, on 8 December. But now, in this time usually filled with joy, some of the nuns were nervous. Their choirbooks were missing. Without them, the nuns would not be able to celebrate the anniversary of Christ's birth adequately. A musician priest of the metropolitan cathedral, located just three blocks from the convent, had caused the nuns' alarm: Antonio Rodríguez Mata (d. 1643) had all five of the missing books. He had borrowed them from Sister Flor de Santa Clara, the convent "vicaria de coro" (choir vicar) but had failed to return them despite the convent's repeated requests. The diocesan vicar general and the attorney general were summoned. The nuns of the Encarnación demanded that Mata be imprisoned if he failed to return the books immediately following the denunciation. The threat of jail time was serious, but so too was the alleged offense: Mata was impeding the nuns from performing their liturgical music for Christmas"--

A vivid and multifaceted discussion of the sonic cultures developed within the diverse and dynamic matrix of Early Modern Catholicism (c.1450–1750), and of the role played by sound and music in defining Catholic experience.

"This two-tiered approach makes the book of compelling interest to scholars of women's studies and Italian culture and history as well as to musicologists."--BOOK JACKET.

"Offering a pioneering interpretation of the "crowned nun" portrait, this book explores how visual culture contributed to local identity formation in Mexico"--

Sherri Franks Johnson explores the roles of religious women in the changing ecclesiastical and civic structure of late medieval Bologna, demonstrating how convents negotiated a place in their urban context and in the church at large. During this period Bologna was the most important city in the Papal States after Rome. Using archival records from nunneries in the city, Johnson argues that communities of religious women varied in the extent to which they sought official recognition from the male authorities of religious orders. While some nunneries felt that it was important to their religious life to gain recognition from monks and friars, others were content to remain local and autonomous. In a period often described as an era of decline and the marginalization of religious women, Johnson shows instead that they saw themselves as active participants in their religious orders, in the wider church and in their local communities.