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

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 explai

In this first-ever book on the solfeggio tradition, one of the pillars of eighteenth-century music education, author Nicholas Baragwanath illuminates how perfor

In April 1644, two nuns fled Bologna's convent for reformed prostitutes. An investigation went nowhere, and the nuns were forgotten. By June of the next year, h

Twenty-first-century monastic communities represent unique social environments in which music plays an integral part. This book examines the role of music in Ca