Monastic Initiation Ritual, Benedictine Nuns.
Ordo Admittendi Virgines ad Monasterii Ingressum.
Milan: Apud Impressores Achiep., 1641.
Large quarto, A-E4, final integral blank E4 present; title page printed in red and black within a border of typographical ornaments, with the Archbishop of Milan's woodcut emblem above the imprint; printed in red and black throughout, with musical notation in the text; bound in full contemporary limp parchment, somewhat soiled, contents crisp, with good type impressions, 9 x 6 1/2 in.
This work covers the rituals carried out during the reception and final vows of novice nuns. It "provides detailed instructions for both the admission and the clothing rituals." All are organized around music. "The greatest amount of chant was associated with the actual clothing ceremony for the novice, after Mass." In these rituals, the officiating priest and abbess bless the new sister's habit, veil, head-dress, and other garments. Eight different pieces of music are included in the clothing ceremony alone. After promising obedience to the Rule of St. Benedict, praying, being sprinkled with holy water, and then singing the responsorial Veni Creator Spiritus with the priest, the newly minted nun, "was to lie (decently, the manual noted) under a pall of black cloth (symbolizing her death to the world)." (cf. Robert L. Kendrick Celestial Sirens: Nuns and Their Music in Early Modern Milan, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996, page 132 ff.)
Rare, one copy of this edition in Worldcat, other editions in 1607 & 1617 similarly rare; very rare at auction.
