[1] She spent her adult life cloistered in the convent of Santa Radegonda, Milan, where she served as prioress and abbess and stopped composing.
[2] Margarita Cozzolani was the youngest daughter of a wealthy merchant family[3] in Milan, Italy.
[4] In the convent of Santa Radegonda, the nuns sang during major religious feast days, which drew a great deal of attention from the outside world.
The archbishop could not have been reassured by the ecstatic report of Filippo Picinelli, in Ateneo dei letterati milanesi (Milan, 1670) who found that "the nuns of Santa Radegonda of Milan are gifted with such rare and exquisite talents in music that they are acknowledged to be the best singers of Italy.
They wear the Cassinese habits[6] of St. Benedict, but they seem to any listener to be white and melodious swans, who fill hearts with wonder, and spirit away tongues in their praise.