Vivaldi's Virgins by Barbara Quick

Author:Barbara Quick
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061758461
Publisher: HarperCollins

ANNO DOMINI 1709

Dearest Mother,

Sister Laura will be surprised when I hand her this letter to post for me, because it is the first I will write on my own initiative, without her complicity.

You see, I have been set to copying scores—a job that is sometimes a privilege and sometimes a punishment here. The putte who are given this task are naturally given a supply of paper, ink, and candles. I’ve been writing the notes in so compact a style that I can save one in every five sheets of music paper. I hope it doesn’t bother you to read my words within the staves.

But I have two bits of great news—or, at least, it seems tremendous news to us, a veritable revolution of opportunity. There are plans afoot to mount an opera, either by Maestro Gasparini or Signor Handel of Saxony, based on the tale of the ancient Roman queen Agrippina, and set to a libretto by Viceroy Grimani of Napoli. This would not be great news in itself were it not for the fact that Maestro Vivaldi has made a request to allow certain putte of the Pietà to be part of the performance. An opera, Mother, in a real theater!

I have no idea whether the governors will listen to Vivaldi, especially now that he is no longer employed as a teacher here. But he has made a good argument—and I know this because I took the letter down myself from his own dictation. At the end he made me promise that I wouldn’t tell anyone else about it, lest it all come to nothing. But I can’t see the harm in confiding the project to you—and my heart will burst if I don’t tell someone.

The other piece of news is even more amazing than the first one. King Frederick—still traveling here as the Duke of Olemberg—commissioned Venezia’s own Rosalba Carriera to paint a life-size portrait of the goddess Diana. And—imagine this! The king instructed her to choose a figlia of the Pietà as her model.

I can’t begin to describe the excitement spawned by this news. Rosalba is best known for her exquisite little pictures on snuff boxes and spot boxes and the like, painted in oil pastels. The grander ladies who come to visit us in the parlatorio have shown us examples of these, and we have always marveled at their wondrous detail. Lately Rosalba has come much into vogue among the nobility both here and abroad, who are commissioning her to paint full-size portraits for their collections.

There was endless speculation about which member of the coro had so caught the fancy of the duke (as we are still instructed to call him) that he wanted to have her face hanging on his wall. Girls, teachers, and even servants here placed bets on which of us would be chosen.

The Prioress addressed us at dinner the night before the inspection to tell us to wash our faces and brush our hair with special care, and to be sure that our fingernails were clean and tidy.

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