ABSTRACT
Since presumably she believed in miracles, perhaps Claudia Francesca Rusca would have been more surprised at the reasons for which her motet book survived into the twenty-first century than at the almost incredible preservation of the edition itself. Her Sacri concerti, pieces for one to five voices plus a basso continuo (i.e., a bass line for an accompanying chordal instrument), were published in her city, Milan, by the up-and-coming music printer Giorgio Rolla in 1630, probably appearing just a few months before the famed plague of that year (immortalised by Alessandro Manzoni in I promessi sposi) devastated the city. This was the first of several misfortunes to befall the book, and its chequered history seems to parallel what we know of this nun’s life, most of which was spent in the house of Santa Caterina in Brera, of the order of the Humiliate. This essay first traces the reception history of a musical edition whose content was largely unknown, then explores some of the complicated background to the book, a context seemingly troubled for a female monastery otherwise characterised, during Rusca’s lifetime, by a strict Milanese archbishop as being particularly exemplary in its devotional and moral life. It concludes by considering the composer’s textual choices for musical setting in this light.1
