Publisher's Synopsis
A Guide to Ospedali Research is a compendium of all the known extant material pertaining to the four Ospedali Grandi of Venice - the social welfare institutions that fostered women musicians from the twelfth through the mid-nineteenth century. The 10 Appendices and 31 Tables facilitate access to the location of thousands of documents pertaining to Ospedali and Venetian studies: more than 2,300 music manuscripts; bio-bibliographies of 312 male maestri; 845 figlie del coro and female maestri; indexes of artists, inventories of art, architecture, and iconography including musical instruments connected with the Ospedali; and descriptions of the social, historical, and governmental structures of Venice associated with the Ospedali.
The correlation of the material in the two volumes provides the specific resources for the corresponding chapters of Jane Berdes' Women Musicians of Venice: Musical Foundations, 1525-1855. A Guide to Ospedali Research and also serves as a catalogue to the more than 46,000 items in the archive of Jane Berdes housed at Duke University and to the location of manuscripts throughout American and European archives and libraries. Jane Berdes wrote "The work of compiling a history of the cori is not finished. Indeed it is hardly begun." She identified more than 200 hundred topics yet to be explored. Anyone interested in Venetian studies will find A Guide to Ospedali Research an essential research reference tool.
