Eleonora d'Este (1515–1575)

Eleonora d'Este (4 July 1515 – 1575) was a Ferrarese noblewoman. She was the first daughter of Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara and his second wife Lucrezia Borgia – as his first daughter, Alfonso named her after his mother Eleanor of Naples.

Life

She was brought up in Ferrara and her mother died when she was four – her father had two more children with Laura Dianti. Eleonora was the only one of Alfonso and Lucrezia's daughters to survive both their parents. She became a nun at the Corpus Domini Monastery and was buried there alongside her mother and other members of her family.

Musica quinque vocum motetta materna lingua vocata

In 1543, Girolamo Scotto of Venice published a collection of 43 religious motets under the title Musica quinque vocum motetta materna lingua vocata. There is no indication in that publication as to who the composer might have been.[1]

Laurie Stras, professor of music at Southampton University, has argued that Leonora may have been the composer.[2] Leonora was triply disqualified from being named in those days: being a woman, and a princess, and a nun.

References
  1. [Musica quinque vocum: motteta materna lingua vocata] : [ab optimis & variis authoribus elaborata : paribus vocibus decantanda : nunquam antea excussa : nunc vero sub hoc signo anchorae in lucem prodit. maximo labore & diligentia emendata, ut patebit experientibus]. OCLC 497473896. Retrieved 11 March 2017 – via worldcat.org. worldcat.org lists these pieces as being for "cantus, altus, tenor, bassus, quintus"; but the 1543 publication says they are for paribus vocibus decantanda, to be sung by equal voices.
  2. Stras, Laurie (10 March 2017). "Sisters doing it for themselves: radical motets from a 16th-century nunnery". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 March 2017.

Sources
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