Ospedale della Pietà

The Ospedale della Pietà was a convent, orphanage, and music school in Venice.

Like other Venetian ospedali, the Pietà was established (in a location remote from the Riva degli Schiavoni) as a hotel for Crusaders. As the Crusades abated, it changed by degrees into a charitable institution for orphans and abandoned girls.

Infants could be left at the Pietà via the scaffetta, a small window large to admit only infants. Not all infants were female, nor were they necessarily orphans. Through the seventeenth century all of four of the surviving ospedali gained increasing attention through the performances of sacred music by their figlie di coro. Formal rules for the training of figlie were carefully drafted and periodically revised. Many of these concerts were given for select audiences consisting of important visitors. (Princesses and countesses were more drawn to the special nature of the performances than were their husbands, brothers, or sons.)

As the institution became celebrated, it sometimes received infants related (not always legitimately) to members of the nobility. In the later decades of the Venetian Republic, which collapsed in 1797, it also accepted adolescent music students whose fees were paid by sponsoring foreign courts or dignitaries.

The Pietà produced many virtuose and at least two composers--Anna Bon and Vincenta Da Ponte. The life of successful figlie was much coveted. Some were given lavish gifts by admirers, and many were offered periods of vacation in villas on the Italian mainland. Most remained their entire lives, though as the Venetian economy declined in the eighteenth century, some left to make (usually advantageous) marriages. In this instance, the institution provided a future bride with a small dowry.

The composer Antonio Vivaldi was appointed a violin teacher in 1703 and served in various roles through 1715, and again from 1723 to 1740. Much of Vivaldi's sacred vocal and instrumental music was written for performance at the Pietà.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's account of 1770 conveys his impressions but has been over-generalized as a description of the institution over an entire century. After describing how the performers were hidden behind metal grilles, he related in his Confessions (1770):

I have not an idea of anything so voluptuous and affecting as this music; the richness of the art, the exquisite taste of the vocal part, the excellence of the voices, the justness of the execution, everything in these delightful concerts concurs to produce an impression which certainly is not the mode, but from which I am of opinion no heart is secure.

He goes on to describe meeting the musicians.

The original building (shown above) is currently a hotel-restaurant complex (the Metropole). The nearby church of the Pietà was opened in 1761, two decades after the death of Antonio Vivaldi. An early childhood education center is still housed in the rear of the building complex behind the church. Most of this complex was donated to the Ospedale in the 1720s, enabling it to expand its activities. Some of Vivaldi's premiere pupils, such as Anna Maria del Violino, were given individual rooms in these newly acquired buildings. It is possible that in the salon of one of them the famous concert for "i conti del Nord", celebrated in Franceso Guardi's painting [1], took place on January 22, 1782. (Guardi's title is "The Dinner and Ball in the Teatro San Benedetto" - another theatre.)

External links

References

André Romijn. Hidden Harmonies: The Secret Life of Antonio Vivaldi, 2008 ISBN 978-0-9554100-1-7
Fernyhough, Clare (12 February 2006). "Revealed: Vivaldi's life with a whole orchestra of women". Independent on Sunday (UK national title). p. 32. Retrieved 2010-09-19.
Eleanor Selfridge-Field. A New Chronology of Venetian Opera and Related Genres, 1660-1760, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8047443-7-9 [2]

Vivaldi's Violins: the Accounts of Ospedale della Pietà Retrieved 20 February 2006.
Eleanor Selfridge-Field. Venetian Instrumental Music from Gabrieli to Vivaldi, 3rd rev. edn., 1994. ISBN 04862815-1-5
Eleanor Selfridge-Field. Pallade Veneta: Writings on Music in Venetian Society, 1650-1750. Venice, 1985. [3]