Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers contains some of the best-known music of the entire Baroque period, but the composer appears to have left no indication of the occasion for which the pieces were composed. Indeed, it would seem likely that the pieces were written individually, and only form a group in our minds because they were eventually published as such. The one thing we do know is that the Vespers music was written while Monteverdi was in the service of the Duke of Mantua; it was published during a period in which he felt undervalued by the Gonzaga family, and was looking for employment elsewhere.