Anna Guarini

Anna Guarini, Contessa Trotti (1563 – 3 May 1598) was an Italian virtuoso singer of the late Renaissance. She was one of the most renowned singers of the age, and was one of the four concerto di donne at the Ferrara court of the d'Este family, for whom many composers wrote in a progressive style.

She was the daughter of the famous poet Giovanni Battista Guarini, author of Il pastor fido. Details of her early years are scanty, but it is known that she began her employment with the court of the d'Este family at the age of seventeen, and immediately attracted attention for the beauty and control of her singing voice. In addition to singing, she was a talented player of the lute. The Duchess of Ferrara, Margherita Gonzaga d'Este, apparently kept her and the other three members of the concerto di donne (Laura Peverara, Tarquinia Molza and Livia d'Arco) as frequent companions wherever she went; and the four musicians sang so beautifully together that they became famous throughout Italy.

In 1585 she was married to Count Ercole Trotti. Circumstantial evidence suggests it was an arranged marriage; he was much older than she was, and there is also evidence that the marriage was not happy. In 1596 she was accused, evidently without justification, of having an affair with a member of the Duke's armed forces. Ercole Bevilacqua also had to flee Ferrara due to Trotti's suspicions that he had had an affair with Anna. Although Duke Alfonso had ordered Trotti not to harm Anna, the Duke died in 1597 and, on 3 May 1598, Trotti surprised Anna in her bedroom while she lay ill with a fever, and aided by an accomplice — her own brother, Girolamo — he murdered her with a hatchet.

Trotti not only was pardoned by the new Duke of Modena, Cesare d'Este, but increased in prestige. At any rate, in 1598 the period of musical experimentation at the Ferrara court ended with the takeover of the town by the Papal States under Pope Clement VIII.

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