Letters of musical interest from Sankt Urban monastery

Tuesday, December 2, 2025

A new volume has just been added to the d-lib series (RISM digital library): the correspondence of the former Cistercian monastery of Sankt Urban, near Lucerne, relating to papers of musical topics, transcribed by Luigi Collarile and Claudio Bacciagaluppi. It consists of sixty letters dating from the beginning of the 17th to the beginning of the 18th century. Monasteries were an important center of musical life in 17th-century Switzerland. Evidence lies in the many surviving musical sources and archival documents. From the Cistercian monastery of Sankt Urban, an extensive collection of the abbots’ correspondence is preserved in the Lucerne State Archives. The sixty letters on musical topics mention composers such as Girolamo Frescobaldi, Jean Titelouze, Felician Schwab, and Johann Benn. They reflect the high value that musical activity held for the monks and their networks of exchange, especially with other monasteries, to procure the latest music. Pictured is the Sankt Urban monastery in a watercolour from 1630 in the Historisches Museum Luzern.