Description
Throughout the Baroque period, Venice’s convents, orphanages, and other charitable institutions were fascinating micro-worlds where music and the arts blossomed, providing joy, solace, and a means of employment for the city’s poorest inhabitants.
The most famous of these institutions was the convent and girls’ orphanage known as the Pietà, where the virtuoso violinist Antonio Vivaldi taught and produced some of his most beloved instrumental and vocal works. The emotional impact of hearing the orphaned or abandoned girls performing ‘like angels’ inspired many a visitor and writer: philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, could not imagine anything on earth ‘so voluptuous and affecting as this music’.
Led by an expert on Italian culture, Kate Bolton-Porciatti, this Conversation will set the Pietà and Venice’s other musical ‘ospedali’ in their social, religious, and cultural context. Designed to inform curiosity as well as future travels, participants will come away with a deeper understanding of Venice's Golden Age.
About Your Expert
Kate Bolton-Porciatti is a professor of Italian cultural history and music at the Istituto Lorenzo de'Medici in Florence, where she teaches BA and MA courses in the humanities. She also lectures at the British Institute, Florence, and at the Chigiana Music Academy in Siena. Kate has published extensively as an academic and a journalist; she is a music critic for BBC Music and a travel writer for The Daily Telegraph, UK. Before moving to Italy permanently in 2005, she was a senior producer and broadcaster for BBC Arts & Classical Music in London and has won prestigious Jerusalem and Sony Awards for her programs. She did her M.Phil. thesis in Italy, exploring the musical culture of early Renaissance Florence.
Audience
This conversation is suitable for all ages.
Duration
90 minutes, including a 30 minute Q&A.