Benedetto Re, mæstro di cappella at the Duomo from 1606 to 1626, was music teacher to Caterina Assandra, a nun at the Benedictine convent of Sant’Agata in Lomello (about 40 kilometers outside of Pavia), and the first nun in 17th-century Lombardy to have published music. Assandra evidently studied composition with Benedetto Re, whom she calls her "Mæstro di contraponto" on the title page of her op. 2. It would appear that the relationship between master and disciple was one of mutual respect for each of them included works by the other in his or her personal collection.
Sisto Reina, a minorite monk, was an organist as well as a composer, and served as organist and/or mæstro di cappella in Saronno, Milan, Piacenza and Modena. His numerous dedications to nuns throughout northern Italy include those to the singer Donna Ginevra Francesca Carcano at S. Maria in Cantù, the organist and singer Donna Delia Maria Ciceri at the convent of S. Margherita in Como, Donna Candida Aurelia Archinta and the organist and singer Donna Candida Maria Campi, both at the convent of S. Ambrosio in Cantù, the musical princess Angelica Luigia Mariana Gonzaga, a nun at S. Paolo in Milan, Rosa Antonia Torriana, a nun at S. Cecilia in Como; and, finally, Suor Erminia Catterina Manzoli, organist at San Giovanni Battista in Bologna.
Ignazio Donati occupied the post of maestro di cappella between 1596 and his death in 1638 in an impressive series of cities both large and small, including Urbino Pesaro, Fano, Ferrara, Novara, and Lodi, finally crowning his career at Milan Cathedral. His compositions demonstrate extraordinary skill in the full range of sacred styles in fashion in the first decades of the century, extending in scale from solo motets to polychoral concertato works with instrumental obbligati.