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Artemisia Editions » Catalogue » Music for the Convents of Bologna
   BO-01Banchieri3 motets
   Lætamini à 4
   Gaudeamus à 5
   Beata es tu à 8
   BO-02vari
   Trombetti
   Fattorini
   Cesena
3 motets for 8 voices
   Regna terræ
   Preparate corda vestra
   Cantabant sancti
   BO-03vari

   Micheli
   Banci
2 motets ad usum
sanctmonialum
   Dixit Dominus
   Le litanie della BVM
   BO-04Arresti2 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.)

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).