When you say 'musician and nun', most people's minds go to 12th century nun Hildegard of Bingen. But she wasn't the only religious sister who made a mark on music history. Today's video of the day comes from Leonora d’Este: a musician, nun, and princess who lived in Ferrara, Italy. d'Este was the daughter of Lucrezia Borgia, a powerful noblewoman and one of the Renaissance's most notorious femme fatales.

Ferrara at the time had a thriving musical and artistic culture, founded upon the unique talents of a set of quite women, who honed their musical gifts in almost total secrecy in convents and at secret concerts. These women went on to have a huge influence on Monteverdi, Gesualdo, and other luminaries of the early Baroque.

'Haec dies', here performed by female vocal group Lyyra, was originally written for Easter Sunday. Likely composed for an all-female ensemble (specifically her fellow-nuns), the high register and complex, nature of the polyphony show a idiosyncratic mastery of the early Renaissance style. 

Leonora d’Este ‘Haec Dies’ was performed by Lyyra and recorded and filmed by Barnaby Smith (VOCES8 & VOCES8 Studios) at St. Luke's United Methodist Church in Houston, TX. lyyramusic.com