Music lovers with a general understanding of Antonio Vivaldi's life are aware that he worked most of his career as a music master at the Ospedali in Venice, an institution that was part hospital and part school for orphaned (or wayward) girls. However, few might know that the term "Ospedali" refers to four Venetian institutions of that kind, the Ospedale della Pietà (where Vivaldi worked), the Ospedale dei Mendicanti, the Ospedale degli Incurabili, and finally the Ospedali dei Derelitti, this last-named facility also ...
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Music lovers with a general understanding of Antonio Vivaldi's life are aware that he worked most of his career as a music master at the Ospedali in Venice, an institution that was part hospital and part school for orphaned (or wayward) girls. However, few might know that the term "Ospedali" refers to four Venetian institutions of that kind, the Ospedale della Pietà (where Vivaldi worked), the Ospedale dei Mendicanti, the Ospedale degli Incurabili, and finally the Ospedali dei Derelitti, this last-named facility also referred to the "Ospedaletto." All four of these hospitals provided extensive musical training to young women and provided shelter until they married or entered a convent; some simply never left the Ospedali. Founded in the early sixteenth century, the Venetian Ospedali system went broke and shut down around 1780, but along the way they employed scores of the best musicians and composers; manuscripts of some 1300 works written for use by the Ospedali have been cataloged. Carus-Verlag's La...
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