The Ballo delle Ingrate (Ballet of the ungrateful women) is one of the more substantial works in Monteverdi's Eighth Book of Madrigals, published in 1632 (titled Madrigali Guerrieri ed Amorosi [Madrigals of Love and War]). The collection is divided into two sections, the so-called "war" madrigals (in the main more allegorical than military) occupying the first half of the publication, those more overtly concerned with love the second. By the time of the publication, the madrigal had been transformed out of all recognition (largely at the hands of Monteverdi himself); Book 8, Monteverdi's first publication of madrigals for nearly 20 years, includes works of a disparate nature composed over a long period in different places and for varied purposes. Each section includes an extended dramatic work, the Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorindi in the instance of the "war" madrigals, the present work forming the conclusion to the pieces concerned with love.

The Ballo was first performed in Mantua on June 4, 1608, when it formed part of the wedding celebrations commissioned by the Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (Monteverdi's first patron) on the occasion of the marriage of his son Francesco to Marguerite of Savoy. (Among other works performed was Monteverdi's lost opera, Arianna, the only surviving part of which, the famous "Lament of Ariadne," is also included in the Eighth Book). While building upon the dramatic foundations of Orfeo (1607), the Ballo is a highly original work that has little in common with the fashionable French court ballets of the period. The framework for the dance is provided by a dramatic plot sung in the recently evolved stile recitativo that Monteverdi had employed with such success in Orfeo. The drama, the text of which was written by the librettist of Orfeo, Ottavio Rinuccini, is set at the mouth of hell and directly addressed to the ladies of the audience by Venus. The ensuing action illustrates the fate of those who reject the forces of love. At the entreaties of Venus and Cupid, eight ingrates are allowed by Pluto to appear at hell's mouth as a dreadful example to those who would similarly deny love, the pathos of their dance juxtaposed with powerfully declaimed recitative culminating in the intensely moving lament of one of the ungrateful women, "Aer sereno e puro" (Clear, pure air) as they are ushered back to the darkness of hell. The instrumental accompaniment detailed on the title page calls for five violes da braccia (treble and tenor viols), harpsichord, and chittarone, a large continuo lute.

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