from Part I - The “Exceptional” Woman
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 March 2026
Antonia Padoani Bembo and Barbara Strozzi both studied music with Francesco Cavalli. Bembo’s career apparently began when she was a young singer in Cavalli’s La Calisto and it lasted into her 70s, when she completed, among other compositions, a five-act opera and motets based on the complete penitential psalms. This chapter lists the pieces from her first book, Produzioni armoniche, that may have been composed during the years that she lived in Venice (c. 1640–77), when perhaps she came under the influence of Barbara Strozzi. All of Bembo’s manuscripts are preserved at the Paris Bibliothèque nationale and date from the years that she lived in France (1677–c.1720). In addition to the aforementioned works, these include sacred and secular music for three- and five-voice choir with accompaniment. In Paris, Bembo received support from King Louis XIV to live in a women’s community known as the “Petite Union Chrétienne.”
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