Isabella Leonarda

In 1636, Isabella Calegari entered the Collegio di Sant‘Orsola, an Ursuline convent in Novara using her church name Isabella Leonarda from then on. In the Ursuline convent, she was a music teacher, as well as a choral and ensemble director. She only began publishing her compositions at the age of 50. More than 200 works were published during her lifetime, almost half of them being solo motet settings of her own texts.