Giovanni Maria Ruggieri (ca. 1669–1714) lived and worked in Venice. His Cantate con violini, e senza, op. 5, was published by Giuseppe Sala in Venice in 1706, and the only surviving exemplar is preserved in the library of the Royal College of Music, London. Although Ruggieri was an amateur musician, this set of cantatas reveals a highly accomplished composer who excelled in his treatment of the voice and also wrote sympathetically and idiomatically for violins and continuo. His text-setting uses...