

Founded in 1336, the Pietà was unique in being both single-sex and accepting infant girls born both in and out of wedlock, provided the child was small enough to fit in a box near the door. Aside from his forty-six operas, most of his five hundred-plus concertos, ninety solo sonatas, and dozens of choral works resulted from his thirty-year association as teacher, conductor, and composer for the orphans in the Ospedale della Pietà, one of four such institutions with prominent musical establishments in Venice. The vast majority of Antonio Vivaldi’s prolific compositions resulted from his various responsibilities in his long teaching career.

