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‘Intrepid musicologist’ (Gramophone) Laurie Stras and Musica Secreta explore the mysterious depths of a precious manuscript, reviving the sounds of the convent choir once directed by Galileo’s daughter, Suor Maria Celeste Galilei.

On the new album, Ricordanze: a record of love, released on the ensemble’s own label Lucky Music on 1 October 2025, Musica Secreta present their deepest exploration yet of the haunting and extraordinary music of 16th-century nuns who sang their community through siege, plague, and deprivation – from the only known surviving manuscript of polyphony from a Renaissance convent.

This double album explores the Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript, the only precious record of 16th-century music for convents known to survive. Covering the full range of nuns’ daily and celebratory music-making, it presents the manuscript’s two beautiful and mysterious masses alongside tiny jewel-like motets, flowing lute song, and the serene chanting of the nuns’ choral worship. Embedded in the music are remembrances of the convent’s history of war, plague and poverty, but also of its deep sense of female community and faith.

‘The Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript has captivated me for a decade’, says Laurie Stras, co-director of Musical Secreta, ‘which is how long it took me to find where it came from, to reconstruct its contents from its crumbling pages, and to understand its place in both the story of Florence and in the history of women making music. It’s a uniquely important document for both musicians and historians, but I was utterly beguiled by the strange beauty of its music, too. I’m delighted that we’ve been able to bring these works back to life.’

Ricordanze: a record of love, Musica Secreta’s eleventh full-length album, reveals the musical world of the convent of San Matteo in Arcetri, a modest community in the hills outside Florence. During the 16th century, the nuns endured siege and plague, and the echoes of their harrowing experiences surface in the music they chose for their manuscript. The nuns’ choirbook was copied in 1560 for two nuns at San Matteo, Suor Agnoleta Biffoli and Suor Clemenzia Sostegni. Almost all the music is anonymous, but it seems likely that one or more of the nuns composed some of the smaller works. The manuscript contains examples of the many different kinds of music nuns sang, all represented on the the album: from day-to-day litanies to lavish mass settings; from light devotional lute songs to intensely reverential motets.

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^{Musica Secreta | Messa sopra Recordare Virgo Mater: Gloria from the The Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript}

In 1612, Galileo Galilei’s daughter, Virginia, entered the convent and became Suor Maria Celeste Galilei. She must have known the manuscript, since she took the place of Suor Clemenzia Sostegni, one of the nuns named on the book’s binding. Suor Maria Celeste later became the convent’s choirmistress and would probably have used at least some of the music.

For over 30 years, Musica Secreta – the UK’s only all-female Renaissance ensemble – has researched, performed, and recorded music written by and for women from the 15th to the 17th centuries. From a Diapason Découverte in 2002, to the Gramophone Early Music Prize shortlist in 2020, and the top 20 albums of 2022 of both the New York Times and the New Yorker, Musica Secreta has sustained an international reputation for blending expert musicianship and scholarship.

The album is a companion to Laurie Stras’s forthcoming online publication in the series, Elements in Women in Music, from Cambridge University Press, titled Music at a Florentine Convent: The Biffoli-Sostegni Manuscript and Suor Maria Celeste Galilei. Written in an engaging and authoritative style, she calls it ‘history for musicians and musicology for historians.’ Stras says: I’ve spent a significant portion of my adulthood living – in my imagination – in the Renaissance, with women from history who are now as much a part of my life as the women in my ensemble, Musica Secreta. By reconstructing their lives and their music, I’ve felt their humanity reaching across the centuries.’ (New York Times, April 2022)

The album is now available to purchase on Musica Secreta’s website as well as Bandcamp. The album launch concert will take place at the Brighton Early Music Festival on 19 October.