In 1524, Gian Giorgio Trissino published I Ritratti: a collection of word portraits of women he considered to be paragons of intellect and virtue, but which focused mainly on highly-sexualised descriptions of their physical beauty.

Adopting Trissino's title but shedding his qualifiers, Musica Antica Rotherhithe present portraits of three 17th Century female Italian composers - Isabella Leonarda, Antonia Bembo and Barbara Strozzi - through their music, alongside extracts from the operas of Strozzi and Bembo’s teacher, Francesco Cavalli.