THE FOUR SEASONS

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The Church of the Pieta that today overlooks the Venetian Lagoon is not the one from the time of THE FOUR SEASONS. The original ospedale and chapel stood on the site of the Metropole Hotel next door. Behind today's church is a small museum of the Pieta, housing instuments and artifacts from the era of the foundling home. The Ospedale della Pieta still operates as a charitable institution.

Only a few remnants of the original Ospedale della Pieta are still there, including this well in the courtyard where the girls took their recreation

THE ORIGINS OF THE OSPEDALI

While all around it, the monarchies of Europe grew in size and power, the Venice of Vivaldi’s time held proudly to its status as a republic, not governed by any one ruler. For centuries, power in Venice had been the prerogative of a group of aristocratic families who maintained their own status and kept each other in check by a bewildering thicket of regulations, requirements, and social conventions.

Prominent among these was the obligation that nobles only marry other nobles. As a result, marrying off the most desirable patrician children demanded exorbitant dowries and gifts, making even the wealthiest of families unable to see all their children properly wed. So many daughters were sent, willingly or unwillingly, to convents that at times as many as three-quarters of the noblewomen in Venice were nuns. Bachelor sons lived in family homes, but it was expected that they would maintain mistresses or courtesans.

Since legitimacy requires married parents, and there were so few of those in patrician Venice, many babies were born out of wedlock. This included the offspring of sex workers and mistresses. Women forced into convents also found ways, if they wished, to have sexual relationships with men. This resulted in pregnancies and births that had to be kept secret. In addition, many poor women found themselves unable to care for the children they bore, and other babies were orphaned by disease or death in childbirth.

In the medieval era, illegitimate and unwanted babies were sometimes killed by drowning in the canals, and the sight of tiny corpses in the water was so horrifying to city leaders that they came up with an alternative. Abandoned and orphaned children could be left at a several Venetian hospitals, to be raised in a special wing until such time as they could be apprenticed, married, or take religious vows. This not only kept them from death and deprivation, but also enabled them to avoid becoming beggars or criminals and thus causing problems for the republic. From this philanthropic goal, the institution of the Ospedale (Italian for hospital) arose.

THE PIETA

Painting by Canaletto showing the view past the Doge's Palace to the Pieta (building with many chimneys, right of center)

The Ospedale della Pieta was not a convent, or an orphanage, or a music conservatory, or even a home for girls, although it had elements of all four.

It was a lay institution, having no official connection with the church, although life inside its wall was ordered according to the Holy Office, the same regimen of prayers and activities used in convents and monasteries. It was a charitable institution that took in orphans, but poor and indigent parents also abandoned children at its doors, and daughters from wealthy families were sometimes sent to live there, usually for short periods. For only a small percentage of the residents did it resemble a music conservatory, since most girls received only basic lessons.

Contrary to the perception that the Pieta was an all-female institution, a small number of boys abandoned at the Pieta were raised in a separate part of the building. Boys left as soon as they were old enough to become apprentices, but those who were physically or mentally unable to take care of themselves became, like women in similar situations, residents for life.

At times the Pieta had in excess of nine hundred residents, only a few dozen of whom were in the coro. The Pieta was funded in part by the city of Venice and in part by donations, but it required long hours of work by its residents to meet operating expenses. Figlie di comun, as the non-musicians were called, served in various money-making workshops in the Pieta, making lace, mending sails, dying silk, and turning out other desirable products for sale.

The figlie were paid small amounts of money for their work, which were kept in individual bank accounts administered by a board of directors known as the Congregazione. In certain situations residents could buy small things with the money, but it was mostly meant to contribute to their dowry, or to the payment necessary to secure a place in a convent. A small, mostly symbolic portion of their earnings was subtracted as a contribution to their upkeep.

The Congregazione handled fund-raising and banking, set policy, and served as the voice of the institution in civic life. The day-to-day management was an entirely female affair. Life in the cloister was overseen by the Priora, assisted by others responsible for various aspects of the institution. The music program was run by several maestre, who conducted rehearsals, oversaw promotions, meted out discipline, and took charge of instruments and sheet music; and sotto-maestre, who were responsible for overseeing lessons and other necessary training for each division of the coro.

The overall institution thrived on self-governance, as did the many convents in Venice and elsewhere. Women who came to the institution as babies rose through the ranks to become its leaders. In the case of the coro, performing members generally served until they were forty and then were permitted to retire, remaining at the Pieta for the rest of their lives, with few obligations other than occasional duty as chaperones.

The typical resident, however, did not stay for life. Wards of the Pieta, unless they were in the coro or needed as teachers, were often gone before they were out of their teens. The expression "maritar o monacar" (marry or take vows) applied to most young women at the Pieta, just as it described the limited options available to women who lived outside its walls.

Ironically, as THE FOUR SEASONS explores, the women of the Pieta and the other Ospedali actually had a wider range of options than women living outside. Here the view of women as capable leaders of communities was encouraged, and women's capacity to rise to the same level of professionalism as men was demonstrated. Whether she and Maddalena were better off having been abandoned is a question Chiaretta ponders in THE FOUR SEASONS, and however unsettling such a question might be today, it provides insight into the shaping influences on the real girls and women who lived in Venice at the time.

Contemporary drawing of the Pieta

ON THIS SITE:

PRAISE FOR THE FOUR SEASONS

THE FOUR SEASONS

Q and A with the Author

Recommended Listening

VIVALDI AND THE PIETA

Antonio Vivaldi

The Music of the Pieta

Vivaldi's Venice

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