This recording is dedicated to a centre of Italian music that is often overlooked: the Milan of the Spanish Habsburgs. After the death of Francesco II in 1532, the Sforza had to cede the Duchy of Milan to the French and ultimately to the Holy Roman Empire. Charles V installed his son Philip II as head of the Spanish Habsburgs and thus the Duchy fell under the rule of a Spanish Viceroy. While the city lost the political importance it had enjoyed under the ruling Visconti and Sforza families, a relative calm between two terrible plagues in 1576 and 1630 promoted a flowering of cultural life under the patronage of archbishop Federico Borromeo. We present a varied soundscape of Habsburg Milan, both sacred and secular. We explore the uniquely Milanese "canzon-motteto" which places a vocal ensemble in dialogue with instruments, double-choir motets, canzonas, and little-known hyper-expressive madrigals of Francesco Rognoni Taeggio, better known as a violin virtuoso and master of the art of improvised diminution. Music of Giovan Paolo and Andrea Cima, Agostino Soderini, Francesco and Giovanni Domenico Rognoni Taeggio, and Giuseppe Gallo.