This work may have been intended as a musical exam, or a job interview piece. The composer's set of sacred concertos was initially written for the court of Mantua. Following some tension with his employers, the composer traveled to Rome and presented the Pope (the dedicatee of the Vespers) with the music. Although the composer stated that the purpose of the trip was to grease the wheels for his young son's acceptance into a Roman seminary, the court at Mantua suspected that he might have been angling for a position at the Vatican, and it is possible that they were right. Eventually this composer secured a job at the cathedral of St. Mark's in Venice and left Mantua, taking his Vespers with him.