[Cornelia]
(b Bergamo, 1644; d Milan, after 1675). Italian composer. She was well known as a singer in her native city; on April 19, 1661 she took final vows at the Benedictine house of S Margarita in Milan. Maria Cattarina was her religious name. Marino Armellini’s account (Biblioteca benediction-casinensis, 1731) of her early death is inaccurate, since she is listed at this monastery into the 1670s. Calvi mentioned that her Motetti à voce sola was printed in 1659; no trace of this collection survives, nor of the madrigals, six-voice Masses, and Vespers that he reported she had composed. The disappearance of her music may have resulted from her conflicts with S Margarita over her spiritual dowry, as well as from Archbishop Alfonso Litta’s musical restrictions at the monastery in the 1660s.
FétisB; GerberNL; GroveW (R.L. Kendrick) [incl. further bibliography]; SainsburyD; SchillingE; SchmidlD; WaltherMLJ. Bowers...