Venice, 1710, and the Renaissance have brought wealth, poverty, and debauchery alongside piety. POINSETTIA GIRL, as the gorgeous cover shows, features a young soloist singer in the choir school.
 
POINSETTIA GIRL is a fictionalised story of Agata de la Pieta, one of the orphan girls who became musicians of the Ospedale de la Pieta. This Orphanage was endowed by the state and the wealthy. Not only did it save children, but it ensured top-class performers for Mass and special religious concerts. I’ve previously enjoyed another story set here, The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable, an account of a violinist who worked alongside Vivaldi. Here we meet the Maestro. The girls were only allowed to perform music written especially for the Ospedale, so Vivaldi was kept busy with compositions.
 
Either girls were passed in the gate by unwed mothers, or else they were brought in later as orphans and assigned to the care of the Ospedale. While not much is known about Agata, the author Jennifer Wizbowski has chosen to frame her as coming from a difficult background. Her father is a dissolute and violent musician, and her mother dies bearing another child. Fearing for the little girl’s physical and moral safety, her loving but elderly Nonna – grandmother – spirits her away and hands Agata over at the age of ten. The child does not understand what is happening. This grants us a look at the watery city of Venice, the Carnevale, women’s work, and how a funeral was conducted.  Once inside the high walls, all that is lost. Rules, schedules, silence and prayer fill the days, broken only by music. If girls can sing or play, they will be trained. If no aptitude arises, they wash and cook. The only way out seems to be a marriage proposal – from a wealthy man they can’t have met, who saw a performance in the church.
 
With the foundlings Agata shares instructor Elena and retired singers who now teach, called Discretes. Soloists get better rooms and treatment, and perform in red and white, earning the nickname Poinsettia Girls. Agata is going to have to make choices.
 
Jennifer Wizbowski has portrayed a rich city that cared little for its women and children. Disease and poverty were rife, and the lack of support drove women without work to less respectable forms of income. POINSETTIA GIRL was among the highest levels a poor girl could achieve. I’m delighted that this work of women’s fiction casts a light on these times. The detailed novel will be of particular interest to musicians.