Barbara Strozzi’s Opus 1 (1644), composed to poetry by Giulio Strozzi, comprises madrigals of two to five voices, so that it stands apart from all of her other works, largely written for one or two voices. While many of the themes in the book follow the work of Barbara’s predecessors and contemporaries, with poems of love, both requited and unrequited, some of the texts refer to old age and the fleetingness of life. In this chapter I suggest that the book represents, in part, an homage to the recently deceased maestro di capella, Claudio Monteverdi (1568-1643). Aside from nods to “la vecchiezza,” there is the transformation of Strozzi’s and Monteverdi’s “Gira il nemico” from Book 8 into a lament of old age, along with references to the master’s Orfeo and to the composer’s last publication, Selva morale e spirituale.