Madonna Bellina, ‘astounding’ Jewish musician in mid-sixteenth-century Venice
Harran, Don
Renaissance Studies Vol. 22 No. 1(2007)
Abstract
Around 1550, the Venetian playwright and satirist Andrea Calmo (d. 1571) wrote a love letter to a certain Madonna Bellina, a Jewess, commending her for her skills as singer and instrumentalist. There were doubtless other Jewish women who knew how to sing and play instruments in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Italy, probably as amateurs. Of those who reached a professional standard, however, only two are mentioned by name: Madama Europa, a singer on the payroll of the Mantuan court together with her brother the Jewish composer Salamone Rossi in the late 1580s and early 1590s (she can be traced until 1608); and Rachel, for whom there is some information as a singer – accompanying herself on a guitar perhaps – in Venice during the years 1609–14 (along with her father and brother she entertained Christians upon their invitation).
Madonna Bellina, ‘astounding’ Jewish musician in mid-sixteenth-century Venice
Harran, Don
Renaissance Studies Vol. 22 No. 1(2007)
Abstract
Around 1550, the Venetian playwright and satirist Andrea Calmo (d. 1571) wrote a love letter to a certain Madonna Bellina, a Jewess, commending her for her skills as singer and instrumentalist. There were doubtless other Jewish women who knew how to sing and play instruments in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Italy, probably as amateurs. Of those who reached a professional standard, however, only two are mentioned by name: Madama Europa, a singer on the payroll of the Mantuan court together with her brother the Jewish composer Salamone Rossi in the late 1580s and early 1590s (she can be traced until 1608); and Rachel, for whom there is some information as a singer – accompanying herself on a guitar perhaps – in Venice during the years 1609–14 (along with her father and brother she entertained Christians upon their invitation).
Click here to read this article from Renaissance Studies
Related Posts
Subscribe to Medievalverse