Our series Music from the Convents of Bologna includes compositions dedicated to the Bolognese convents of Santa Cristina and Santa Maria Nuova as well as the convent of San Michele in S. Giovanni in Persiceto (twelve miles from Bologna).
Artemisia Editions » Catalogue » Music for the Convents of Bologna
| BO-01 | Banchieri | 3 motets Lætamini à 4 Gaudeamus à 5 Beata es tu à 8 |
| BO-02 | vari Trombetti Fattorini Cesena | 3 motets for 8 voices Regna terræ Preparate corda vestra Cantabant sancti |
| BO-03 | vari Micheli Banci | 2 motets ad usum sanctmonialum Dixit Dominus Le litanie della BVM |
| BO-04 | Arresti | 2 motets for 3 voices Ad cantus O fulgorem |
One of the most important centers of music in the convents was Bologna. At least 10 collections of music dedicated to nuns (or, in one case, written by one) appeared between the end of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. This in spite of the heavy hand of Gabriele Paleotti, the zealously conservative archbishop, who, like his distant cousin and successor Alfonso, strived to limit music in the convents. Gabriele, in fact, had a list of rules drawn up for the benefit of the local nuns according to which the use of polyphony was strictly limited to feast days (once a year); musical instruments other than the organ, occasionally the bass viol, and the harpsichord inside the cells, were banned; and, perhaps most significantly, musical education from outside (male) teachers was completely prohibited. (Similar rules continued to be published throughout the 16th and 17th centuries--an encouraging sign that they were not being adhered to.)