Two motets ad usum sanctimonialum
	Romano Micheli Dixit Dominus	SSBa/Bc	or	SSA
	Giovanni Banci Le litanie della Beatissima Vergine Maria	SATTTB/Bc	or	SASSSA/Bc
Price: €13 or $13USD		listen to Dixit Dominus

Giovanni Banci dedicated his Primo Libro de Sacri Concerti a Due, Tre, Quatro, e Cinque Voci (Venice, 1619) to Donna Anna Maria Merlini, a nun and singer at the convent of San Michele in San Giovanni in Persiceto (twelve miles from Bologna). What little is known of Banci is found on the title page of this work: he originated from Argenta (near Ferrara) and evidently worked at one time in Bologna. Banci set three separate Litanies for the Blessed Virgin, a popular Marian prayer setting of the time, with an invocation and response structure. The Litany in our edition is originally scored for soprano, alto, three tenors and bass. In our edition for women’s voices, the parts which fall outside the range of female voices (the three tenors and bass) have been transposed up an octave.

Romano Micheli (c. 1575-1659) was born in Rome and worked for a brief time there before embarking on travels to various Italian cities (including Venice, Naples, Ferrara, Bologna and Milan). Micheli published two similar collections of psalms for three voices (SSB) which contain various suggestions for performance, including a transposition of the bass part up an octave for an ensemble of women’s voices, ad usum Sanctimonialium ("for use by the reverend nuns").