Sunday, August 18, 2019

On The Ospedale della Pieta

Posted: 8/18/2019


The citizens of the Western World are fooled on a daily basis to believe that the emergence and enormous expansion of the welfare state in Western countries since about the late 19th century is a great achievement and a great benefit to society. The opposite is closer to the truth! The welfare state is a huge power grab by government and represents an enormous subjugation of its citizens!


“The Ospedale della Pietà was a convent, orphanage, and music school in Venice. Like other Venetian ospedali, the Pietà was first established as a hospice for the needy. A group of Venetian nuns, called the Consorelle di Santa Maria dell’Umiltà, established this charitable institution for orphans and abandoned girls in the fourteenth century. ...


Infants could be left at the Pietà via the scaffetta, a window only large enough to admit infants. Not all infants were female, nor were they necessarily orphans. Through the seventeenth century all four of the surviving ospedali gained increasing attention through the performances of sacred music by their female musicians, known as figlie di coro.


By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Pietà - along with the three other charitable Ospedali Grandi - was well known for its all-female musical ensembles that attracted tourists and patrons from around Europe” (S1; emphasis added)


None other than the great Antonio Vivaldi was engaged by the Pieta for many years of his active live: “The composer Antonio Vivaldi was appointed a violin teacher in 1703 and served in various roles through 1715, and again from 1723 to 1740. Much of Vivaldi's sacred vocal and instrumental music was written for performance at the Pietà.” (S1; emphasis added)


The Ospedale della Pieta was not an isolated case. There were many institutions like it all over Europe. Many of them probably forgotten.


Sources (S):

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