THE VENETIAN ‘FIGLIE DEL CORO’: THEIR ENVIRONMENT AND ACHIEVEMENT

Abstract

THE DEVELOPMENT of women's choirs in Venice during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries forms part of the general welfare activities of the city's social institutions. Religious principles and expediency were the motivating forces that produced a unique phenomenon midway between the splendour of opera and the spirituality of sacred music. The present article attempts to focus attention on the various factors that contributed to the creation of this expression of Venetian culture and to show how the choirs, which sprang from the component aspects of Catholic charitable institutions, not only furthered the development of music but served eventually to alter the direction and image of the institutions to which they owed their formation. The designation luoghi pii (or pii luoghi as it often appears in the records) appears frequently in the Venetian archives from the inception of these institutions right to the end of the eighteenth century, when the organization of welfare work in Venice changed under the Napoleonic regime. There were several pii luoghi, which were created to meet specific needs at different times, and the purposes they fulfilled covered some of the fundamental needs of society. The post-Reformation period brought a fresh upsurge of religious fervour that was expressed in its material effects by the establishment of some of the most renowned social institutions of Venice, which soon became centres for the training of women singers and instrumentalists. Several further institutions sprang up to assist women against the evils of prostitution, either by prevention or by rehabilitation-such were the Zitelle, the Soccorso, the Penitenti and the Convertite. Others served, among other things, as hospitals, for example the Incurabili, which was for syphilitics only. The Derelitti and the Mendicanti provided for all febricitanti, as patients suffering from then undiagnosable diseases were generally described. These last three pii luoghi contained orphanages for abandoned children, as did the earlier Pieta, renowned in Venice as a foundling institution from the mid fourteenth century. The common aim of all four of these pii luoghi was, as is frequently reiterated in their records, to provide various forms of charity for the needy. Their functions were multiple, and in many respects they coincided. As well as containing orphanages, all