The letter attributed to Vittoria Brunelli, a fictional character, is taken from a letter by seventeenth-century composer Lavinia della Pietà . It appears in Women Musicians of Venice, by Jane L. Baldauf-Berdes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
My great thanks to Liana Borghi, Tere Carranza, Faith Conlon, Cathy Johnson, Gail and Betsy Leondar-Wright, Cristina Manozzi and Pat Mullan.