In 1986, Craig A. Monson—now a professor of music at Washington University in St. Louis—took a few days off from his research in Italy, and visited a little-known museum in Florence. There he found a Renaissance music manuscript that he traced to a Bolognese convent—surprising, given the raunchy lyrics of its secular selections: “One day Guillot was with Barbeau and showed her his devilish great thingummy. She, too, unveiled her nether charms, more ruby red than rosy….”
As Monson continued his research, he discovered much about nuns that had little to do with piety. “Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Magic, Art, and Arson in the Convents of Italy” is a collection of the more outrageous stories, perpetrated mostly by well-born women with little inclination toward religious life. Recently, Monson took the time to answer questions from the Book Bench. Read more at newyorker.com…