NAOMI J. BARKER is Senior Lecturer in Music at the Open University. She is the author of various articles on late-sixteenth and seventeenth-century music. This is her first book.

Music, Medicine, and Religion at the Ospedale di Santo Spirito is an outstanding contribution in the field of musicology and historical music performance. Barker's work exemplifies the best of interdisciplinary scholarship, illuminating how music functioned not merely as entertainment but as essential to care, ritual, and theological meaning in early modern Rome.

• List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Editorial conventions and notesAbbreviations1. The Hospital of Santo Spirito: history, architecture, administration2. Music and medicine in the early modern world3. The harmonious soul4. Bernardino da Cirillo: the impact of humanism and reform5. Music in the Church of Santo Spirito in the Seventeenth Century 6. Music for body and soul7. Stefano Vai: The 1644 decree and retrospective reformsAppendix A. Virgilio Spada, 'Discorso sopra la musica della Chiesa'Appendix B. Stefano Vai, 'Decreta Observanda in Ecclesia S. Spiritus circa Sacras Functiones' Appendix C. Rubrica della chiesa collegiale e parocchiale di S. Spirito in Sassia di RomaBibliographyIndex

NAOMI J. BARKER is Senior Lecturer in Music at the Open University. She is the author of various articles on late-sixteenth and seventeenth-century music. This is her first book.

Music, Medicine, and Religion at the Ospedale di Santo Spirito is an outstanding contribution in the field of musicology and historical music performance. Barker's work exemplifies the best of interdisciplinary scholarship, illuminating how music functioned not merely as entertainment but as essential to care, ritual, and theological meaning in early modern Rome.

• List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Editorial conventions and notesAbbreviations1. The Hospital of Santo Spirito: history, architecture, administration2. Music and medicine in the early modern world3. The harmonious soul4. Bernardino da Cirillo: the impact of humanism and reform5. Music in the Church of Santo Spirito in the Seventeenth Century 6. Music for body and soul7. Stefano Vai: The 1644 decree and retrospective reformsAppendix A. Virgilio Spada, 'Discorso sopra la musica della Chiesa'Appendix B. Stefano Vai, 'Decreta Observanda in Ecclesia S. Spiritus circa Sacras Functiones' Appendix C. Rubrica della chiesa collegiale e parocchiale di S. Spirito in Sassia di RomaBibliographyIndex

NAOMI J. BARKER is Senior Lecturer in Music at the Open University. She is the author of various articles on late-sixteenth and seventeenth-century music. This is her first book.

Music, Medicine, and Religion at the Ospedale di Santo Spirito is an outstanding contribution in the field of musicology and historical music performance. Barker's work exemplifies the best of interdisciplinary scholarship, illuminating how music functioned not merely as entertainment but as essential to care, ritual, and theological meaning in early modern Rome.

• List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Editorial conventions and notesAbbreviations1. The Hospital of Santo Spirito: history, architecture, administration2. Music and medicine in the early modern world3. The harmonious soul4. Bernardino da Cirillo: the impact of humanism and reform5. Music in the Church of Santo Spirito in the Seventeenth Century 6. Music for body and soul7. Stefano Vai: The 1644 decree and retrospective reformsAppendix A. Virgilio Spada, 'Discorso sopra la musica della Chiesa'Appendix B. Stefano Vai, 'Decreta Observanda in Ecclesia S. Spiritus circa Sacras Functiones' Appendix C. Rubrica della chiesa collegiale e parocchiale di S. Spirito in Sassia di RomaBibliographyIndex