Agata della Pietà

Who is Agata della Pietà?

Agata della Pietà was an Italian composer, singer, and teacher of music.

A foundling admitted in infancy to the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, she received thorough musical training from her childhood in the coro, or music school, of the convent; she later became a soprano soloist, singing teacher, and school administrator. She is known to have been the soloist in motets commissioned from Giovanni Porta and Andrea Bernasconi, in whose manuscripts she is mentioned by name; she is also mentioned in an anonymous verse tribute to musicians of the Pietà cori which dates to around 1740.

Only two motet settings by della Pietà, a Novo aprili in F and a setting, also in F, of Psalm 134 for compline, survive; only the instrumental bass part to the latter survives. In addition, she produced a pedagogical text, Regali per Gregoria, for one of her pupils, an alto soloist named Gregoria known to have been active between 1746 and 1777.

Along with Michielina and Santa della Pietà, della Pietà was one of three foundlings of the Ospedale known to have become a composer. Nothing is known of her later years or of her death.