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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 January 2024
During the 1620s, when churches throughout Northern Italy were scaling back musical expenditures due to shrinking coffers, the confraternity Misericordia Maggiore continued to lavishly fund music in Santa Maria Maggiore, Bergamo. In a decade marred by war, austerity, death, famine, and plague, music received robust institutional support. Drawing from new archival research, a picture emerges of the enduring importance of musical life to the Bergamasque community in the face of challenges on multiple fronts. Additionally, Bergamo surfaces as a neglected site of almost unparalleled large-scale musical activity in early Seicento Italy.
Research for this article was made possible thanks to a Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Grant. I am grateful to Linda Austern, Drew Davies, Gary Towne, and Ed Muir for valuable feedback at various stages of completion, to Jessie Rosenberg for help with translation, and to Marcello Eynard at the Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai in Bergamo. Special thanks to the two anonymous reviewers of Renaissance Quarterly for their keen attention to detail.