An exuberant period of rebirth, emerging from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance brought an artistic flowering exemplified in the glories of Italy: painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music.
The splendid choral works of Palestrina and Allegri, composing in Rome and Gabrieli and Monteverdi, active in Venice, are noble and intricate, serene and exhilarating.
While Allegri’s soaring Miserere was composed for the Sistine Chapel, Monteverdi’s epically conceived Vespers evoke the grandeur of the domed basilica of St Mark’s.
