Albergati’s La Beata Caterina da Bologna (1697)

Abstract This oratorio, like Perti’s Beata Imelde (see Chapter 11) and Albergati’s L’iride di pace o sia il Beato Nicolo Albergati (1690), was composed in honour of a Bolognese saint. The embalmed body of Caterina de’Vigri had a place of honour in an ornate chapel in the church of the Poor Clares, Corpus Domini. Pirro Albergati, whose family palace lay in the same quarter of the city, com posed his oratorio about Caterina when the Catholic Church venerated her as a ‘Beata’. She was canonized and rose to the rank of ‘saint’ in 1712. That is why the composer, when he published the oratorio as part of his opus 10 in 1714, altered its title to Santa Catterina Vigri da Bologna.