1566 -  fl 1611 - ?

Italian composer.
She was a pupil of Marc’Antonio Negri and may have worked in Verona or Venice.
She is known by a single composition, a setting of ‘Udite lagrimosi spirti d’Averno, udite’, from G.B. Guarini’s Il pastor fido (Act 3 scene vi), included in the second book of Negri’s Affetti amorosi (Venice, 1611), identified in the table as ‘della Sig.ra Lucia Quinciani, sua Discepola’.
The book consists mainly of monodies and duets, with a concluding cantata on a text by G.B. Marino.
Quinciani’s piece is the earliest published monody by a woman.
Nothing further is known about her.
She appears not to be related to the composer Lucrezio Quintiani.

Bibliography:

C. Sartori: Bibliografia della musica strumentale italiana stampata in Italia fino al 1700 (Florence, 1952-68)
C. Schmidl: Dizionario universale dei musicisti
J. Bowers: ‘The Emergence of Women Composers in Italy, 1566–1700’, Women Making Music: the Western Art Tradition, 1150–1950, ed. J. Bowers and J. Tick (Urbana and Chicago, 1986)
Grove Music Online: www.oxfordmusiconline.com

Author:

Thomas W. Bridges