Vittoria Colonna Meets Ignatius of Loyola in Philippe de Monte’s ‘Il primo libro de madrigali spirituali a cinque voci’ (1581)
Vittoria Colonna Meets Ignatius of Loyola in Philippe de Monte’s ‘Il primo libro de madrigali spirituali a cinque voci’ (1581)

Summary/Abstract: In 1581, the Imperial Kapellmeister Philippe de Monte published his first book of spiritual madrigals, which he dedicated to the Jesuit superior general Claudio Acquaviva. Laurentius Coteman, a former pupil of Monte’s who had become a Jesuit, supplied the poetry, including many texts by Vittoria Colonna. Although Colonna’s poems are often associated with reformist theology, Coteman may have interpreted them through the lens of Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, a pivotal text for Jesuit spirituality. Through the appropriate interpretative lens, Monte’s musical settings of Colonna’s sacred poems were thus able to convey Jesuit spirituality to their performers and listeners.

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