Harriet Constable acknowledges the work of the Vanessa Tonelli in the writing of The Instrumentalist.

Women and Music in the Venetian Ospedali is the title of a 2013 Masters thesis by Vanessa Tonelli undertaken at Michigan State University.

From the abstract:

“The Venetian ospedali [convent, orphanage, music school] provided unique places in which women could train and perform as professional musicians. Much of our understanding of the ospedali, however, has been formed through the study of individual, male composers who wrote for the ospedali, of specific musical genres, such as motets or oratorios, or of individual archival collections. Studies of the female students and their lives are scarce. Additionally, ideas about gender shaped and continue to shape our understanding of these all-female institutions. To address these issues, this thesis focuses on the lives and public perceptions of the ospedali musicians.”