Warren Kirkendale

A Miniature Guide to Rome

for Music Historians*
Rome, 2008. Revised and abbreviated 2012
CONTENTS

Introduction ............................................... 2
I. Archival Documents in General
1. Letters ............. .. 3
2. Diaries ............... 3
3. Payments of Salaries ...................... 3
4. Bills and Receipts ......................... 4
5. Parish Registers ..................................................... 4
6. Notarial Archives ....... 5
7. Names ........ 5
8. Chronology .................... 5
9. Paleography .......6
10.Genealogy and Heraldry ............... 6
11. Graphics ....... 7
12. Conclusion ................7
* This text, here somewhat abbreviated, was prepared for an excursion to Rome of four professors and 25
students from my former institute of musicology at the University of Regensburg, 3-6 June 2008. The original
German version is filed in the Deutsches Historisches Institut, Rome, and is available from me. Another
complete version, in Italian, will be published in Fonti Musicali Italiani. This includes lists, omitted here, of
the representative sources examined in each library and archive visited. Though these are limited to Rome,
those in other cities possess analogous material, often arranged in a similar manner, of course with an emphasis
on their own region. Also the composers mentioned here may be regarded as samples, representing others who
might be studied in the same way. I beg indulgence for the unaccustomed didactic tone and for the personal
selection of the sources, referring largely to composers whom my wife and I have studied (Cavalieri, Handel,
Caldara), since these documents are the easiest for us to find, and examples of their use can readily be found in
our books, abbreviated as follows:
AC = Antonio Caldara: Life and Venetian-Roman Oratorios Florence, Leo S. Olschki, 2007.
AF = LAria di Fiorenza, ibid., 1972. Addend in EC pp. 421-431.
CM = The Court Musicians in Florence during the Principate of the Medici, ibid., 1994. Addenda in EC, pp.
433-457. Chapter I deals with the organization of the archives in Florence.
EC = Emilio Cavalieri, Gentilhuomo Romano, ibid., 2001.
MM = Music and Meaning: Studies in Music History and the Neighbouring Disciplines, ibid., 2007. Cf.
chapters 19-20 on archival work and the concept of sources (the pleonasm primary sources and the
oxymoron secondary sources).

II. The Libraries and Archives

1. Biblioteca Angelica ........................ 7
2. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana ..................... 8
3. Biblioteca Casanatense ...................................... 8
4. Biblioteca del Conservatorio Santa Cecilia ........ 8
5. Biblioteca Corsiniana ............. 9
6. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale .................. 9
7. Archivio Musicale di San Giovanni in Laterano ........... 9
8. Biblioteca Vallicelliana ........................................................ 10
9. Other Libraries ...........................................................10
10. Archivio Segreto Vaticano ................... 10
11. Archivio di Stato ........................... .11
12. Archivio Storico Capitolino ................... 11
13. Archivio del Vicariato ....................11

* * *
Introduction
Rome may be considered the most interesting of all cities: at least since the first century B.C. the
capital of the ancient world, then of Christianity, and finally of the modern Italian state. No city
possesses so many universities, libraries, books (they can be located easily by typing URBS,
URBE, DHI, SBN or KVK into Google), and archival documents, so many sources for serious
historiography. For this reason, every important country of culture has not only its own church and
school here, but also its historical institute, with a library and lodgings for scholars who come here
to work. These institutes offer fellowships, lectures, exhibits, and concerts; they produce scholarly
publications and enrich the cultural life of the city. Germany has no less than three excellently
equipped institutes: the historical (DHI), the archaeological, and, for art history, the Bibliotheca
Hertziana. Here future professors are trained. Thus all roads lead to Rome. The daily register of
readers in the Vatican Library reads like a Whos Who of international scholarship in the
humanities.
Most musicologists should agree that music history requires two types of material: on the one hand,
primary sources in the old libraries and archives; on the other, secondary literature and modern
editions. The old libraries and archives in Italy possess an enormously rich treasury of sources.
Especially two foreign institutes have excellent collections of modern musicological publications:
the Deutsches Historisches Institut (DHI) in Rome and the Harvard University Center for Italian
Renaissance Studies (Villa I Tatti) in Florence.
History begins with literacy. Almost all knowledge which we have of the past is derived from
sources, where individuals (preferably identifiable), authors of literary and musical works and
contemporary witnesses of them provided written records before the information was lost. With
these, we have the unique opportunity of obtaining new and reliable results. One does not
necessarily have to live in a city rich in sources. Much can be accomplished through photocopies,
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correspondence, interlibrary loan, and, today, sometimes even Internet (caveat emptor! the quality
of fast information is often comparable to that of fast food). If one compiles well prepared lists
of points to check, one can accomplish much even with relatively short research trips.
I shall deal first with work in archives. It can be very rewarding, but presents more problems,
demands much more time than libraries, and can be daunting to the beginner. I would not
recommend it as the exclusive topic of a dissertation. Here it would be better to take musical
sources as the point of departure, and use only those archival documents which can be found
without all too great expenditure of time, as a bonus. Unlike libraries, in archives one does not find
easily legible printed books with indices of names and subjects, but one must begin with inventories
which communicate very little information about the content of often thick volumes: the years
covered, the provenance and type of documents. In the Vatican and Florentine state archives the
inventories alone fill an entire room. But, with enough experience, one can learn to find what one
wants and to use an archive like ones own private library. I present this text now on the occasion
of the congress of the International Musicological Society in Rome, 2012 as a modest and by no
means complete first attempt to encourage and facilitate eventually the work of an endangered
species, which may be qualified and willing to undertake it and have the opportunity of doing so.

I. Archival Documents in General

1. Letters
An important and very interesting category of documents are letters, such as those addressed to a
court or other authority. The correspondence (carteggio) for a single year can consist of a stack of
ca. one meter, without indices of the writers or addressees, so that one must search, folio by folio, to
find even a useful signature. (Meanwhile, the data base of the Medici Archive Project has greatly
facilitated this work in Florence). Far fewer letters are preserved in copies, or minute, which were
sent out from a court, so it is necessary to consult archives in other cities to find the letters sent
there. Letters to private persons (e.g. musicians) are not often preserved, since such persons did not
have archives.

2. Diaries
In many libraries and archives one can find both handwritten (e.g. Antonio Valena [I-Rasc cred.
XIV, t. 9] or Francesco Valesio for Rome) and printed diaries (e.g. the Diario ordinario of Cracas
for all of Europe like the Wienerisches Diarium, which is now available on Internet), as well as
handwritten intercity newsletters (avvisi). For Florence, cf. the many titles in CM p. 672. They
often provide valuable information on musical performances cf. also below, II.12, Archivio
Capitolino.

3. Documentation for Payments of Salaries

The ruoli or libri di salariati are very important. A ruolo (payroll) is a list of court employees,
usually arranged by occupation and thus providing distinct overview for a certain date. An example
for a ruolo of musicians at the Medici court from the year 1583 is reproduced in CM, after p. 192.
The libri di salariati are much more detailed, since they record the dated monthly payments (ibid.,
the following plate). Many of the papal musicians in Rome lived from benefices, i. e. from offerings
derived from churches or their single chapels, often not even located in Italy. For benefices, cf. the
Registra Supplicationum in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano and the article by Richard Sherr in our
Festschrift, Musicologia Humana (Florence, Olschki, 1994). Adalbert Roth of the Biblioteca
Vaticana is very familiar with these.

4. Bills and Receipts

As for the salaries, also for single services and materials the records (bills and receipts) were
preserved, so that one could prove that payments had been made. They are called giustificazioni,
justifications. Archives were assembled purely for such administrative purposes, not for future
historians. With the giustificazioni in the Fondo Ruspoli of the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, my wife
could reconstruct in detail the hitherto unknown activities of Handel and Caldara in Rome: the
expenses for their food, furniture, etc.; the payments to the musicians who performed their music;
to the workmen who prepared the halls; to the printer of their librettos and to the bookbinder for
their music manuscripts; and, above all, the dated bills of the copyists indicating also the titles (text
incipits) and folio numbers of the compositions (for Handel ca. 50 cantatas, serenatas, oratorios; for
Caldara much more; the production of two and seven years, respectively). Many of the manuscripts
billed here could be found in Mnster (the Santini collection in the Dizesanbibliothek). They have
the same handwriting and the same number of folios as indicated in the bills and thus could now be
dated, localized, and identified with their patron Ruspoli. Hitherto we knew only that Handel, like
his successor at Ruspolis, Caldara, composed much music with Italian texts, but not when, where,
or for whom. Examples of such bills can be seen in MM, after p. 340.

5. Parish Registers
These are sometimes united in a single archive, such as the Archivio del Vicariato di Roma or the
Archivio Arcivescovile and Archivio dellOpera del Duomo in Florence, but are also often still in
the single parish churches. Only with the Council of Trent were parishes obliged to register
baptisms, marriages, and burials. It must be emphasized that the dates registered here usually refer
to the particular sacrament: not to the birth or death, but to the baptism or burial, often a few days
removed. This distinction is sometimes overlooked in music dictionaries. In order to find such
documents, one must identify the parish where the event took place, and that is not always easy. For
Rome, Pier Luigi Gallettis immense Necrologio romano, Ms. I-Rvat Lat. 7871-7899, is useful. It is
organized by names and indicates the parishes. In Florence death registers were kept also by the
physicians and apothecaries guilds. It is not easy to find a date if one does not have a suspicion
what year comes into question. In Florence I could determine this through the termination of
payments of the salaries, which normally continued not only to the day of death, but to that of burial
(cf. the tables appended to CM). The musicians and artists on the ruoli of the Medici were virtually
tenured, and thus not treated badly. Since a person is normally better known at his death than at
his birth, it is easier to find dates of death than those of birth, also from other sources. Sometimes a
death register or a tombstone will indicate the age at death. But one cannot, as often happens,
calculate the year of birth simply by subtracting this age from the year of death, since two years
come in question for the birth, depending upon whether the person died before or after his last
birthday. Only in those cases where the age at death is given exactly with months and days can one
know the year of birth. Also dates of baptism are difficult to find without some clues for the year.
Here an indication of age at death can be helpful. Also inscriptions on tombstones are valuable
biographical sources, and for important cities like Rome, Florence, and Venice one does not need to
search for them in cemeteries and churches, but can find them in large collections of transcriptions:
Vincenzo Forcellas Iscrizioni for Rome, Stefano Rossellis handwritten Sepoltuario for Florence
(I-F II.I.125-126 and I-Fas Mss. 624-625), and Emmanuele Cicognas Iscrizioni for Venice, which
contain also some inscriptions which no longer exist. In Mantua I found the tombstone inscription
of Alessandro Striggio jr., the librettist of Monteverdis Orfeo and son of Alessandro Striggio sr.,
the most important composer in Florence towards the end of the 16th century. It contains a
genealogy of six generations, and indicates the offices held by each one (published in CM, pp. 7980).
The Roman parishes kept also books of periodic censuses, the status animarum indicating the
residents in each house. In order to find persons, one must know the parish in which they lived. But
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in the lists of residents in Francesco Maria Ruspolis palaces the name of Handel is missing, though
he could be proven to have lived there for ca. two years. Could it be that he was not included in the
status of souls because he, as a Lutheran, did not have a soul according to Catholic criteria?

6. Notarial Archives
Notarial archives preserve testaments, inventories of estates, and contracts, the latter especially for
purchase, sale, and rental of real estate and marriage contracts with the results of negotiations for
dowries. To find a document, one must know the name of the notary, and for this there are various
aids in the respective archives, such as the handwritten rubrica in the reading room of the Archivio
Storico Capitolino, with alphabetical listings of the partners of contracts. Notarial documents are
valuable historical sources for all classes of society, not merely for employees of courts. Corellis
testament, which is almost illegible and names his patron Cardinal Ottoboni as heir, is accompanied
by the inventory of his estate, consisting mainly of some musical instruments and a large collection
of paintings.

7. Names
The same person is often found under different names: surname (more humble persons, musicians
and artists often had none; surnames long being a privilege of the nobility), patronym, toponym,
nick-name (the frequent Italian soprannomi), instrument, or voice range. Thus a Giovanni Rossi
might appear also as Giovanni di Giorgio, Giovanni da Firenze (if he had left that city), Giovanni
cieco (a physical characteristic), Giovanni del violino, or Giovanni tenore (occupation) this
example is fictitious. As I gradually became aware that different names designated the same person,
the entries in my card file I did not yet have a computer for musicians in Florence decreased.
Sometimes, for greater precision, a patronym may be followed by the name of the paternal
grandfather, e.g. Giovanni di Giorgio di Lorenzo. In many languages surnames were long derived
from these different categories. Some examples: Jones = Johnson, Andersen, etc. (patronyms);
Smith = Schmidt, Baker = Becker, Taylor = Sartori = Schneider (occupation); Palestrina,
Caravaggio, Vinci (toponyms); Brown = Braun, Black = Schwarz (hair colour); cf. Hermannus
Contractus, Noktor Balbulus (physical characteristics). When names are arranged alphabetically in
old documents, this was done more often not by surnames (sometimes non-existent), but by
Christian names. Famous Italian artists, also those with surnames, are more often called by their
Christian names (Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo). Occasionally both Italian names are identical,
except for the number: e.g. Galileo Galilei. Many aristocratic men of letters in Italy bore pastoral
pseudonyms as members of academies, names which can be identified in the publications of
Giovanni Maria Crescimbeni.

8. Chronology
Documents must be dated. That is not always easy, even if they have dates, because different
regions in different times used different calendars. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII had the calendar of
Julius Caesar, hitherto in use, corrected. That was necessary because the year does not consist of
exactly 365 days, as in the Julian calendar. Meanwhile the spring equinox had moved up to 11
March, and the Papal State therefore bypassed ten days in 1582. But the Gregorian calendar was not
accepted in England until 1750 and in Russia until the 19th century. Thus exists considerable
confusion in Eastern historiography, e.g. on the Byzantine liturgy or vital statistics of Russian
composers in dictionaries.
Various local calendars had different dates for the beginning of the year. In Tuscany the stile
fiorentino was used, where the new year did not begin until 25 March. In Pisa it began on also on
25 March, but one year earlier, ab incarnatione. Thus 24 March 1595 stile fiorentino and 26 March
1597 stile Pisano both belonged to the year 1596 stile comune. In Venice dates were usually more
5

veneto, with the year beginning on 1 March. Since most of the complications affect the first months
of the year, they are especially problematic for the history of opera, where carnival was the
principle season. Eleanor Selfridge Field has recently devoted an entire book to the complex
chronology in the operatic capital, Venice, where different systems were used simultaneously and
therefore many dates had to be corrected For liturgical music, on the other hand, it is important to
know on which day Easter and other mobile feasts fell. One can find that in Adriano Cappellis
Cronologia. I once overheard a charlatan on the Roman forum trying to sell coins bearing the date
44 B.C. to American tourists.
Very few musicologists know that in Italy the hours were counted not from midnight, but from
sundown. Thus one frequently reads of unbearably long and late performances, which lasted,
e.g., until three oclock in the morning [recte: = three hours after sunset].

9. Paleography
Knowledge early notation should be required of all graduate students in musicology. But music
historians need not only musical, but also literary paleography, not to mention half a dozen ancient
and modern languages. Old documents are often difficult to read. But if we cannot read the writing
that requires practice and patience we are quasi illiterate. In the Vatican and in some of the most
important large European cities (for example also in the Roman Archivio di Stato) there are
excellent schools of paleography which provide valuable training. In manuscript sources, above all
in Middle Latin, much is abbreviated, because writing by hand was toilsome. Opa means, fondly,
grandfather in German, but in Latin and Italian, if there is a short horizontal stroke through the
lower part of the letter p, this letter is to be read as per, and the word is thus opera. The
abbreviations, except the most common (such as titles of address), must be written out, and for this
another book of Adriano Cappelli is useful: his Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane. Many
authors expand abbreviations tacitly. But it is generally better, especially when the solution is not
obvious, to distinguish the added letters through italics or square brackets. In diplomatic
correspondence code is sometimes used, e.g. when Emilio de Cavalieri writes from Rome to
Florence that the Grand Dukes nephew Virginio Orsini wants to have a barrel of poison during a
conclave in Rome (cf. EC, p. 77 and plate 25; Aloys Meister, Die Geheimschrift im Dienste der
ppstlichen Kurie, 1906). Such texts can be read when, after their arrival, they have been
deciphered between the lines by a code secretary. Sometimes one finds lists of ciphers for the
names of persons. A Mafia boss was not allowed to keep his Bible when he was imprisoned,
because he used it for secret communications to his clan a very old technique (e.g. codes using
Psalm numbers and incipits, or even musical notation).

10. Genealogy and Heraldry

Also these belong to biographical research. A person is completely identified only through his
genealogy, and one can explain from this events in his life, such as education, character, or an
inheritance. Every biography should contain a genealogy, reconstructed from the kinds of
documents described above. Well known families can be found in the large collections of family
trees, for Italy, e.g., in Pompeo Litta, Famiglie celebri italiane or Vittorio Spreti, Enciclopedia
storico-nobilare italiana; for all of Europe, the various publications (almanacs, yearbooks etc.) of
Gotha.
Heraldry, the study of coats-of-arms, is a discipline of its own, with its own terminology. This
makes it possible, with very few, often archaic words, to reconstruct quite precisely a coat-of-arms
without a visual image. With an old, international system of various shadings, lines, and dots it is
possible even to indicate the colours in black-and-white drawings cf. CM, plate IVa, after p. 192:
horizontal lines = blue, dots = gold, white = silver. Patrons arms (popes, cardinals, secular nobility)
are to be seen everywhere, not only in the churches and palaces which they built but also on the title
6

pages and bindings of printed volumes dedicated to them or manuscripts which they commissioned
and/or possessed. They can give valuable indications of the patron and provenance. Also some
musicians not belonging to the nobility had their own arms (cf. ibid., plates IVb, Va-b, after p. 192,
and plate IXa-b, after p. 336). The Biblioteca Casanatense possesses a very fine manuscript
collection of arms (Ms. 4006) from which the one on the cover of EC was taken.

11. Graphics
Reproductions of iconographical sources such as portraits, old maps, title pages, engravings and
drawings of buildings etc. contribute much to the content and attractiveness of a book, and they
should be exactly identified, as in art-historical publications (names and dates; for paintings their
locations, dimensions, and material). Useful for this are catalogues of museums and exhibitions, and
dictionaries of artists (Dictionary of Art Thieme-Becker, Saur). Libraries and archives in every
major city possess graphic collections, especially for their own region. Important for Rome are
Giuseppe Vasis Delle magnificenze di Roma antica e moderna, 1741-61, a large series of churches,
palaces, etc., and Giovanni Battista Nollis Nuova pianta di Roma of 1748, which identifies very
many buildings with numbers (cf. EC, plate 15, and MM, plate XI.3, after p. 404). A very large
collection of old maps of Rome was published by Amato Frutaz in 1962. When one looks for an
equivalent location from an old map on a modern one, it is sometimes difficult to identify it,
because the layout of streets etc. may have been changed. Several intervening maps must then be
consulted in order to trace the location, as I had to do for Emilio de Cavalieris palace.

12. Conclusion
Only a very small proportion of documents in a general archive is relevant for music history. A
general, political, economic, or social historian can make use of much more of them for his work
than can a music historian, but must limit himself to wars, politicians, economics, etc., while
historians of music, art, and literature take the best part. Very important for music historians are the
neighbouring disciplines of the humanities: history (the mother of all historical disciplines), history
of art and of literature.
It is evident that I prefer archival and biographical research. I believe that writings about music
should have human interest and not merely describe and analyze sounds in a vacuum, abstractly and
dryly, but deal with the human beings who created the music in connection with their times
(family, teachers, colleagues, patrons, ambient, etc.). Then one begins to understand their works and
the content of these. The contemporary sources, especially their letters, bring us much closer to
them than does any secondary literature. Goethe was right when he said: Whoever wants to
understand the poet, must go to the poets country [to which I would add: in search of sources].

II. The Libraries and Archives

1. Biblioteca Angelica, Piazza S. Agostino 20
The Biblioteca Angelica was founded in 1604 by the Augustine bishop Angelo Rocca and is the
second oldest public library in Europe, after the Biblioteca Vallicelliana. Rocca was director of the
Vatican press and bequeathed his library to his Augustine convent. The Angelica possesses
literature on St. Augustine and his Order, on the Reformation and Counterreformation. Since 1940
it is the seat of the literary academy Arcadia and collects, above all, material on the history of
Italian literature, useful for texts set to music, though the librarys small music holdings were
transferred to the conservatory. It is worth a visit if only to see its old reading room, one of the most
beautiful in Rome.
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2. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

The Vatican (library and archive) possesses the worlds largest and most valuable manuscript
collections. The library alone has ca. 60,000 volumes of manuscripts (among these many of music),
7,000 incunabula, ca. 1,000,000 later books (generally well selected), etc. It was founded in 1475 by
Sixtus IV. In the Vatican museum one can see the famous painting by Melozzo da Forli, which
shows the pope, at the inauguration, appointing Bartolomeo Platina as the first librarian. Some of
the most precious treasures are on exhibit in the librarys Sala Sistina, built by Domenico Fontana,
1587-89. Much of the holdings consists of gifts of entire private libraries (of cardinals, noble
families, but also, on a much more modest scale, of scholars, including musicological libraries of
Casimiri, Ronga, and Kirkendale [catalogue in I-Rvat, I-Rpism, and DHI]), which are not
integrated, but remain autonomous. Thus it is a library of libraries, not theological, but historical.
Especially for the manuscripts, separate catalogues must be consulted. The name of the actual fondo
forms the first part of the shelf number. Particularly important for music are the fondi Cappella
Sistina (catalogue by Jos Maria Llorens), Cappella Giulia (catalogue by Llorens), Barberini (17thcentury operas, photocopy of the handwritten catalogue in DHI, shelf no. Bc I-Ro 131-3), Chigi
(especially keyboard music of the 17th century, photocopy of catalogue in DHI, Bc I-Ro 41-2). Franz
Xaver Haberl published in 1888 a thematic catalogue of music of the papal chapel (DHI, Bc I-Ro
30). Other important fondi are the libraries of the Duke of Urbino ( 1482, Fondo Urbinate), of the
elector in Heidelberg (1622, Fondo Palatina), of Queen Christina of Sweden (1686-91, Fondo
Reginense), and the biblioteche Ottoboniana (1748), Borghesiana (1891), and Ferrajoli (1926,
including opera libretti catalogued by Giuliana and Teresa Gialdroni). Only for printed books is
there an integrated catalogue on line, but digitalization of manuscripts has begun. An enormous
advantage of the Vatican Library is the excellent selection of books immediately accessible in the
reading rooms and in the adjoining catalogue rooms, from which one can learn much while waiting
for books to arrive from the stacks. Also journals are immediately accessible in their own reading
room. The Library has produced an enormous number of very learned historical-philological
publications (cf. the Catalogo delle pubblicazioni della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2011).

3. Biblioteca Casanatense, Via S. Ignazio 52

The Biblioteca Casanatense is housed in a part of the Dominican convent of S. Maria sopra
Minerva. It was founded with 25,000 volumes of Cardinal Girolamo Casanate (1620-1700), has
been accessible to the public since 1701, and was taken over by the state in 1884. It possesses an
impressive sala monumentale (18th c., with 60,000 of its 350,000 volumes); 6,000 manuscripts,
2,200 incunabula, 30,000 engravings. Its music holdings are largely from the library of Giuseppe
Baini (catalogue in DHI, Bc I-Ro 6), papal chapel master and first biographer of Palestrina (1828).
It is rich in church and theater history, has many plays, 7,000 opera librettos, and many autographs
of Paganini. Concerts are given in the sala monumentale as in reading rooms of other old libraries
(Angelica, Vallicelliana), made possible through a new law. When the Biblioteca Nazionale was
still housed in the Collegio Romano, the Casanatense was connected with this palace by a
passageway above the Via S. Ignazio.

4. Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica S. Cecilia, Via dei Greci 18

Housed in a former convent, with the refectory now serving as the reading room (like the
conservatory library in Florence), this library obtained through the Italian government music
holdings of other libraries, such as those of monasteries. It possesses 8 incunabula, 312 editions of
the 16th century, 10,000 manuscripts, Roman operas of the 17th century, autographs since the end
of the 18th century, and a large collection of libretti (Fondo Carvalhaes). The holdings of the
Accademia di Santa Cecilia have been transferred to the much less central, modern Parco della
Musica.
8

5. Biblioteca Corsiniana, Via della Lungara 10

The original Palazzo Corsini was built in the 15th century for Cardinal Domenico Riari, nephew of
Pope Sixtus IV. From 1655 it was occupied by Queen Christine of Sweden, who converted to
Catholicism and relinquished her crown because she wished to live in Rome. In 1689 she died in
this palace. She played an important role here as patroness, and founded a literary academy from
which the famous Arcadia academy derived. After a member of the noble Florentine family Corsini
had become Pope Clement XII in 1730, the palace, which now belonged to the Corsini, was
remodelled. Napoleon confiscated it and assigned it to his brother, the French ambassador, who was
murdered here by the populace. This led to the French occupation of the city, to the banishment of
Pope Pius VI, and to the establishment of the republic. The library was founded in 1754 by Lorenzo
Corsini. In 1884 the family sold the palace, art collection, and library to the new Italian state. Here
is located the national gallery with the paintings which Cardinal Neri Corsini had collected during
the 18th century, mostly works of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The palace, directly opposite my apartment, is the seat of the Italian academy of sciences, the
Accademia dei Lincei, which has also its library here. It was founded in 1603 for the natural
sciences by the botanist Federico Cesi. Galileo belonged to its first members, much later also
Pasteur, Rntgen, Mommsen, and Einstein. With the death of Cesi in 1630 it was disbanded. Only
in 1847 was it revived as the papal academy of sciences. The humanistic disciplines were admitted
in 1875.
Most of the music holdings (catalogues of Argia Bertini and Enrico Careri in DHI Bc I-Ro 7 and
29) belong to the Fondo Chiti. Girolamo Chiti (1679-1757) was a pupil of Pitoni in Rome,
custodian of the Corsini chapel in the Lateran church, and chapel master there since 1727. In 1750
he presented his music collection to Cardinal Neri Corsini. It contains, in addition to liturgical
music, also the autograph manuscripts of Chitis theoretical writings. In Bologna is preserved an
extensive correspondence between him and Padre Martini, which now can be read on Internet.

6. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Via Castro Pretorio 105

A visit to the large, modern national library was not scheduled during our excursion, since it offers
less historical and musical interest and is not located within the historical center. Founded in 1875,
it received the holdings of 69 dissolved religious institutions and of the Collegio Romano (inter al..
books belonging to Athanasius Kircher). Most modern books printed in Italy are deposited here.
Important bibliographical programs, such as the Istituto di Bibliografia Musicale (IBIMUS) are
located in this library.

7. Archivio Musicale di S. Giovanni in Laterano, Via Amba Aradam 3

The Lateran church, Romes cathedral, was first built at the beginning of the third century on land
donated to the pope Melchiades by the first Christian emperor, Constantine. The name Lateran
derives from the previous owner. Repeatedly damaged by vandals, earthquakes and fires, it was
modernized by Francesco Borromini for the Holy Year 1650. The five Lateran councils 1123-1512
were held in the adjacent Lateran Palace, residence of the popes from the time of Constantine until
their return from Avignon in 1377. The organ in the left transept of the church, the most important
one in Rome, was commissioned by Clement VIII for the Holy Year 1600 from the famous organ
builder Luca Blasi, with a facade by Giovanni Battista Montani. (cf. MM, pp. 359f and plate X.1
after p. 356; EC, plate 30). Blasi was knighted for this. On 14 January 1707, i.e. shortly after his
arrival in Rome, Handel played this organ with great approbation (MM, Ch. X). The music library
possesses works from the large repertoire of this church (catalogue by Giancarlo. Rostirolla).

8. Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Piazza della Chiesa Nuova 18

The Florentine Filippo Neri, later saint, founded in 1565 the Congregation of the Oratorio, a lay
confraternity. Upon his initiative the Chiesa Nuova, S. Maria in Vallicella was begun in 1575. It had
an important location, on the Via Papale, which connected the Lateran with the Vatican. Rubens
painted altarpieces. The Congregation accompanied sermons with lauds, i. e. religious songs in the
vernacular, now polyphonic predecessors of the oratorio volgare (as opposed to the oratorio
latino in S. Marcello). The word oratorio, of course, originally meant only prayer hall, and
appeared for the first time in 1640 with Pietro Della Valle, cousin of Emilio de Cavalieri, as a
designation of music performed there. In that same year the new oratorio was consecrated, part of
the large complex built by Borromini for the Congregation to the left of the church, where also the
library and the Archivio Capitolino are housed.
For Filippo Neri, music was an important means of converting and instructing souls. He had also
literary interests: meals were accompanied by the reading of religious texts. His library was
mentioned already in 1581 (1700 printed books, 300 Mss.). It is the oldest Italian library to be made
accessible to the public. With Neris death in 1595 it went to the Congregation. Further donations
soon followed (Giovanile Ancina 1604, etc.). The Congregation produced major publications,
e. g. Cardinal Baronios Annales Ecclesiastici 1588-1607.
The most important music-historical event which took place here was the performance of Emilio
de Cavalieris Rappresentazione di Anima e di Corpo for the Holy Year 1600 in the old oratory of
the Chiesa Nuova (gone today). This work (not Peris Euridice) is the oldest extant opera (not an
oratorio) cf. MM Ch. 5. The library possesses a copy of its first edition and libretto, and
manuscript descriptions of the performances (EC, Ch. X).
When the religious corporations were dissolved in 1874, secular public law was applied to the
library. The palace went to the state, and many of the documents to the Archivio di Stato, though
the Congregation still has its own archive on the ground floor. The Societ Romana di Storia Patria
and the Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo are housed in the same building (important
publications).
Required reading for musicologists should be Edward Lowinskys seminal article A Newly
Discovered Sixteenth-Century Motet Manuscript in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana in Rome, JAMS,
III, 1950, pp. 173-232..

9. Other Libraries
There are many more libraries in Rome, often with their own specialty, e.g. for art history
(Bibliotheca Hertziana above the Spanish Stairs, Istituto Nazionale di Archaeologia e Storia
dellArte in the Palazzo Venezia), history of the theater (in the Casa Burckhardt, 1503), the Bible
(Pontificio Istituto Biblico), music (Pontificio Istituto di Musica Sacra), German literature (Villa
Sciarra), history of medicine (Lancisiana), jurisprudence (Camera dei Deputati), or libraries of the
foreign academies (the American, on the Janiculum, is very good for Classical philology,
archaeology, and art history), and the many state, private, and ecclesiastical universities. Some of
the foreign national churches in Rome (e.g. the German, Spanish, etc.) have archives containing
document on music.

10. Archivio Segreto Vaticano

At the beginning of the 17th century the document holdings of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
were separated as an autonomous archive by Paul V. The archive consists of a very large number of
fondi or archivi. Cf. L. Boyle, A Survey of the Vatican Archives and Studi e Testi vol. 45, 55, 134.
The activity of Handel and Caldara in Rome could be reconstructed with the documents of the
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Fondo Ruspoli Marescotti (cf. MM, pp. 328-346, and AC pp. 445-478). The Registra
Supplicationum contain valuable biographical information on musicians and their income.
Manuscript avvisi (newsletters in the fondo Segreteria di Stato) and reports of the nunciature
(embassies) sometimes contain information on musical performances in other European cities.

11. Archivio di Stato, Palazzo della Sapienza, Corso Rinascimento 40

The documents of the Archivio di Stato until the unification of Italy in 1870 are housed in the
Palazzo della Sapienza, built by Jacopo Della Porta during the pontificate of Sixtus V towards the
end of the 16th century as seat of the university founded in 1303, which only in 1935 was
transferred to the ugly Citt Universitaria (fascist architecture). The visitors from Regensburg could
consult documents in the Sala Alessandrina, designed by Francesco Borromini, which at that time
served as university library.
This archive contains, above all, secular documents, since ecclesiastical ones were taken to the
Archivio Segreto Vaticano or to provincial centers within the Papal States. But the oldest ones,
except for the medieval parchments, are those of the Camera Apostolica (14th-15th c.), the financial
bureaucracy. There are also many collections of documents of notaries (e. g. the Latin and Italian
wills of Emilio de Cavalieri, published in EC, pp. 391-398), confraternities, hospitals, law courts,
customs offices, taxation, and families, as well as old maps.

12. Archivio Storico Capitolino, Piazza della Chiesa Nuova 18

This is the archive of the government of the city of Rome, as it was newly organized in 1143: with a
senator and three conservatori (magistrates) elected for short mandates, imitating ancient Rome and
replaced in 1870 by a mayor and assessors.. Also Emilio de Cavalieri was a conservatore. One
fondo is that of the Camera Capitolina. The Camera administered the finances of the city, e.g. the
collection of customs at city gates and bridges, and paid the salaries of the university professors
with duty charged for imported wine. These offices were bought and bequeathed in perpetuum as
sinecures. Cavalieri possessed both of them, even when living in Florence. Another fondo, the
Archivio Urbano, was founded by Pope Urban VII in 1625 for copies of notarial documents: ca.
1,000 volumes since the 14th century, continuing to the unification of Italy in 1870. The notarial
documents before 1870 were brought from the Capitol to the present palace of the Oratorians in
1922. Also some family archives are located here, e.g. of the Orsini (with letters of musicians such
as Vittoria Archilei, Giulio and Francesca Caccini, Cavalieri, Francesco Rasi, Claudio Monteverdi)
and Capranica (which maintained a theater in Rome). These are often more interesting, since they
were not public, but private. The Archivio Boccapaduli contains documentation for the posthumous
completion of the capitol designed by Michelangelo, administered by Cavalieris father Tommaso.
Benedict XIV donated the very interesting and detailed Diario (1700-42) of Francesco Valesio,
which mentions Handels organ playing in the Lateran church soon after his arrival in Rome (MM,
pp.351f). The archive possesses also a substantial library specialized in Roman history and with
Roman newspapers since the Diario ordinario, begun in 1716 by Cracas, and many city maps.

13. Archivio del Vicariato di Roma, Via Amba Aradam 3

See above, II.5, Parish Registers.

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