Barbara Strozzi e suo tempo

To be born in the seventeenth century into a Venetian family frequented by the greatest literary and musical minds of the time, at a time when the city was at its cultural zenith, was a stroke of luck. This good fortune was all the more enviable if one demonstrated an early musical talent predestined for a prolific composing career. However, to succeed in these conditions as a woman and without the support of a permanent patronage was a different matter. To compose, moreover, works of a quality comparable to those of her contemporaries (all male), to publish more than them and to become a prominent figure in the Venetian musical scene of her century was, for the time, an extraordinary fact. Such was the case with Barbara Strozzi.