From the apparition of the stile rappresentativo (Monteverdi’s famous Lettera Amorosa) and the monophonic madrigal (Frescobaldi, Negri), to the heyday of bel canto (Carissimi, Stradella, Melani), to its parody (with the very burlesque and unpublished Lettera del Signor Carlo Antonio Benati alla Signora Vittoria Tesi by Marcello), the letter in music is attempted in the golden age of Italian cantata, by numerous composers. La Gioannina reveals a hidden and exemplary face of the Italian cantata, following its echoes to a contemporary creation by Vincent Bouchot on unpublished texts of a great poet of our time, Michel Butor.