Livia d'Arco (c. 1565–1611) was an Italian singer in the court of

Alfonso II d'Este Alfonso II d'Este (22 November 1533 – 27 October 1597) was Duke of Ferrara from 1559 to 1597. He was a member of the House of Este. Biography Alfonso was the elder son of Ercole II d'Este and Renée de France, the daughter of Louis XII of F ...

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

Biography

She was sent there with the household of Margherita Gonzaga d'Este at the time of Margherita's marriage to Alfonso in 1579, and was a young woman at the time, around fifteen. Livia was the daughter of a minor

Mantua Mantua ( ; ; Lombard language, Lombard and ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Italian region of Lombardy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, eponymous province. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the "Italian Capital of Culture". In 2 ...

n nobleman from Arco family, and was perhaps sent to the court in Ferrara because of her musical potential. When she arrived, she began studying the

viol The viola da gamba (), or viol, or informally gamba, is a bowed and fretted string instrument that is played (i.e. "on the leg"). It is distinct from the later violin family, violin, or ; and it is any one of the earlier viol family of bow (m ...

with

Luzzasco Luzzaschi Luzzasco Luzzaschi (c. 1545 – 10 September 1607) was an Italian composer, organist, and teacher of the late Renaissance music, Renaissance. He was born and died in Ferrara, and despite evidence of travels to Rome it is assumed that Luzzaschi ...

and Ippolito Fiorini. After a few years of study she joined Laura Peverara,

Tarquinia Molza file:Flickr - Yale Law Library - Tarquinia Molza, dottissima Signora detta Unica.jpg, Tarquinia Molza Tarquinia Molza (1 November 1542 – 8 August 1617) was an Italian singer, poet, conductor, composer, and natural philosopher. She was considered ...

and Anna Guarini in the '' Concerto delle donne''; the first record of her singing with them was in 1582. Like the other members of the ''Concerto'', poems were written in her honor, specifically by

Torquato Tasso Torquato Tasso ( , also , ; 11 March 154425 April 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem ''Gerusalemme liberata'' (Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between ...

and Angelo Grillo under the pseudonym Livio Celiano. In 1585 she was married to Count Alfonso Bevilacqua.

References

* 1560s births 1611 deaths Italian women singers 16th-century Italian singers 16th-century Italian women singers People from the Duchy of Ferrara {{Italy-singer-stub