UCLA Center for the Study of Women

In 1743, Jean-Jacques Rousseau visited a hospice in Venice, called the Ospedale dei Mendicanti, to hear its all-girl choir perform a concert. He described the girls’ performance as “far superior to the Opera […] which has not its like in all Italy nor anywhere else perhaps.” What he heard was an anomaly, distinctive to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italy, because, except for the occasional opera star, European society ordinarily looked down upon women performing music publicly. Nevertheless, the Mendicantiand other Venetian orphanages – henceforthospedali– grew into grand music conservatories for displaced girls. Visitors from around the continent came to theospedalito hear their performances. Like Rousseau, many scholars have also recognized the high-quality music of theospedali, but they emphasize the male composers and teachers such as Antonio Vivaldi, who taught violin at the Ospedale della Pietà in the eighteenth century. Research on theospedalistudents is lacking. We have yet to establish how these talented girls were able to subvert social norms to become soloists, music teachers, and virtuosi.I intend to address this deficiency. I will first discuss the prevalence of abandonment, the system that grew around it, and the social expectations for women in regards to music. I will then offer a few reasons why it became acceptable for these girls to perform music publicly.