This is a version of an article due to appear in volume two of the proceedings of the 1986 conference ‘L'opera tra Venezia e Parigi’ (Venice: Fondazione Cini), edited by Lorenzo Bianconi, with whose kind permission it appears here. Part of the research for this paper, especially of new findings in the political correspondence housed in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, was facilitated by a research grant in 1986 from the School of Fine Arts, University of California, Irvine.

¹ Dethan, Georges, Mazarin et ses amis (Paris, 1968)Google Scholar; Eng. trans. by Baron, Stanley, The Young Mazarin (London, 1977).Google Scholar

² Ignatio in Monserrato overo Mutation d'Armi; attributed to Guínigi, V.. Pirimalo, tragediaGoogle Scholar, attributed to Alessandro Donati. Scenarios for both plays were published in Rome by Alessandro Zanetti; copies are in I-Rvat Loreto IV. 3, int. 2 and 11. See Franchi, Saverio, Drammaturgia romana (Rome, 1988), 130–2Google Scholar, for summary descriptions of both scenarios. RISM sigla are used to designate libraries throughout this essay.

³ On the Barberini operas, see Murata, Margaret, Operas for the Papal Court, 1631–1668 (diss., University of Chicago, 1975Google Scholar; pub. Ann Arbor, UMI Research Press, 1981); and Hammond, Frederick, ‘Girolamo Frescobaldi and a Decade of Music at Casa Barberini, 1634–1643’, Analecta Musicologica, 19 (1979), 94–124Google Scholar, and his ‘More on Music in Casa Barberini’, Studi musicali, 14 (1985), 235–61.Google Scholar

⁴ Giulio Mazzarini to Cardinal Antonio Barberini, jr., Paris, 24 February 1636 in Paris, Ministère des Relations extérieures, Archives. Correspondance politique, Rome, vol. 69, f. 94–94v. Hereafter F-Pre C.p. Mazarin himself, however, presented a French comedy for the king, queen and all the court at the ‘Hôtel Richelieu’ on 5 April 1636, played by the companies of ‘Belle-roze & Montdori’. See Hall, Hugh Gaston, Richelieu's Desmarets and the Century of Louis XIV (Oxford, 1990), 139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ See dell'Arco, Maurizio Fagiolo and Carandini, Silvia, L'effimero barocco: Strutture della festa nella Roma del '600 (Rome, 1977), I, 108–10.Google Scholar For d'Estrées, see his Memoires, ed. Bonnefon, P. (Paris, 1910).Google Scholar He was in Rome from March 1636 to 1640/41.

⁶ La sincerità trionfante overo l'Erculeo ardire, favola boscareccia, dedicata all'Eminentissimo e Reverendissimo Sig. Cardinale de Riscigliù, e rappresentata nel palazzo dell'Illustrissimo & Eccellentissimo Sig. Marchese di Courè [de Coeuvres] Marescial di Francia, &c. et ambasciatore straordinario di Sua Maestà Christianissima alla Santità di Nostro Signore Papa Urbano VIII. Nelle publiche allegrezze celebrate in Roma per la nascita del Delfino. Composta dal Sig. Ottaviano Castelli da Spoleti e posta in musica dal Sig. Angelo Cecchini, compositore del sig. Duca di Bracciano [Paolo Giordano Orsini]. In Ronciglione, 1639, per Francesco Mercurij. The dedication was signed by Castelli from Rome, 12 January 1639. Numerous copies exist in Roman and French libraries. A second edition was issued by Vitale Mascardi in Rome in 1640, with a dedication signed by Castelli, 1 October 1640. Numerous copies of this second edition, with a portrait of Castelli, a dedicatory poem by Francesco Bud (among others) and a dialogue ‘Sopra la poesia dramatica’ (from which the quotation comes, p. 46) also exist. See Franchi, (n. 2), 230–2, 239–40.Google Scholar Cecchini's score is lost.

⁷ Castelli says, in discussing familiar diction on comic dialogue, ‘genere nemicissimo alla cantilena’, that in places he let music go, and had the actors recite without singing; in Sincerità trionfante (Rome, 1640), ‘Dialogo’, p. 31.Google Scholar

⁸ I-Rli ms. 1731, Avvisi di Roma, 18 December 1638, f. 316; see also 11 December, f. 310.

⁹ Lionnet, Jean, La Musique à Saint-Louis des français de Rome au XVII^me siècle (Venice, 1986)Google Scholar, part 2, document 97². Lionnet's research, both published and unpublished, into musicians associated with French institutions in Rome has been invaluable in tracing the musicians who make music history. I wish to acknowledge him here for his collaboration in identifying a number of singers who appear in this essay.

¹⁰ Lionnet, , part 1, pp. 77–9Google Scholar, 81 and private communication. See also Colley, Thomas, Jesuits in Music (St Louis, 1970), 332Google Scholar, a letter of 1643 to Carissimi that mentions that Monello had gone to Venice to sing opera.

¹¹ The plate is reproduced in The New Gmve Dictionary of Opera, ed. Sadie, Stanley (London, 1992), IGoogle Scholar, entry on ‘Castelli’. Bjurström, Per, Giacomo Torelli and Bamque Stage Design (Stockholm, 1962), 136–8Google Scholar, reproduces both plates. Not all the scene changes indicated in Castelli's libretto were illustrated.

¹² Lionnet, , part 2, doc. 97.Google Scholar

¹³ [Giulio Mazza] to Léon Bouthillier, comte de Chavigny, Rome, 27 February 1639 in F-Pre C.p. Rome, vol. 65, f. 178.

¹⁴ [G. Mazzarini] to Cardinal Alessandro Bichi, Rome, 20 January and 14 February 1639 in F-Pre C.p. Rome, vol. 65, if. 86, 90v. These efforts must be those alluded to in Dethan (see n. 1), p. 75.

¹⁵ Ottaviano Castelli to G. Mazarin, Rome, 3 January 1640 in F-Pre C.p. Rome, vol. 71, f. 11v.

¹⁶ O. Castelli to G. Mazarin, Rome, 7 February 1640 in F-Pre C.p., Rome, vol. 71, f. 148v. J. Lionnet, private communication. A Silvestro Tagliaferro appears in Vienna as a tenor from 1 October 1640 to 1645; see Köchel, L. von #450 in Die kaiserliche Hofmusikkapelle in When von 1543 bis 1867 (Vienna, 1869).Google Scholar He returned to Rome, at S. Luigi dei francesi, in 1645–6.

¹⁷ Feb. 1640, f. 148v. The next two quotations are from the same letter. Castelli's third project was Muta, a comedy for the Accademici Occupati.

¹⁸ See Murata, Margaret, ‘Classical Tragedy in the History of Early Opera in Rome’, Early Music History, 4 (1984), 132–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A summary of the expenses is in Hammond, , ‘Girolamo Frescobaldi’ (see n. 3), 121–2.Google Scholar The argomento for the five-act Latin play was published as Gioseppe, comedia sacra latina (Rome, 1640)Google Scholar; a copy is I-Rc Vol. Misc. 1512/6. Castelli mentions only three intermedii for Gioseppe, but a manuscript in the British Library preserves these along with a prologue and a fourth, making a complete set. Hammond, ibid., note 91, gives the payments to the composers and lists instrumental performers. GB-Lbl Add. ms. 8813, ff. 125–146v contains a prologue for Prudenza; I due filosofi (Eraclito, scolaro piangente, Democrito, scolaro ridente); Le piante (Lauro, Cipresso, Pino); [Lingue forestiere] (Dottore [Graziano], Pantalone, Coviello, Zanni); and La cieca (Eurilla, Flora, Dafne, Elisa, Lidia, Lilla, Licori, Clorinda, Dorilla, Clori).

²⁰ He had been a soprano at San Luigi dei francesi from April 1631 to September 1633; see Lionnet, (n. 9), part 1, pp. 62, 76, 77.Google Scholar

²¹ [Elpidio Benedetti] to G. Mazarin, Rome, 7 March 1640 in F-Pre C.p. Rome, vol. 71, f. 243; published in Madeleine Laurain-Portemer, ‘Mazarin militant de l'art baroque au temps de Richelieu (1634–1642)’, in Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'Art franfais, année 1974 (Paris, 1975), 95n87Google Scholar; see also 96n99. Laurain-Portemer has identified Nicolò as N. Meng, one of Bernini's assistants.

²² See Laurain-Portemer, 95n89, based on Benedetti's letter of 7 March; see n. 21 above, f. 243v. Guitti had designed the machines for the 1633 Barberini opera and the 1634 Barberini torneo in the Piazza Navona. Hall (see n. 4) reads this 1640 correspondence as a prelude to staging largely spoken theatrical works in the Grand' Salle of Cardinal Richelieu's palace, beginning with Desmarets’ Mirame on 14 January 1641 (see his Chapter 6, pp. 131–61). But the continuing correspondence reveals that Mazarin reluctantly abandoned preparations for a comedy in music only around July 1640 (see n. 27 below). An estimate of the cost of the ‘apparato’ for a comedy in the Great Hall (2,988 livres) is only dated 18 November 1640 (Hall, 137).

²³ E. Benedetti to G. Mazarin, Rome, 20 March 1640 and 21 April 1640 in I-Rvat Capponiana, , ms. 97, pp. 16–22, 24.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ibid; see also Laurain-Portemer, , 95.Google Scholar

²⁵ Identified by Laurain-Portemer, (p. 73)Google Scholar as Giovanni Maria Mariani of Ascoli-Piceno; Vicenc Leckerbetien, known as Manciolo; Francesco and Tiberio, carpenters from Bernini's shop; and Pietro Sassi.

²⁶ Benedetti, E. to Mazarin, G., Rome, 16 August 1640 in I-Rvat Capponiana, ms. 97, pp. 45–56.Google Scholar

²⁷ Laurain-Portemer, , 95n97Google Scholar, from F-Pre C.p. Rome, vol. 69, f. 215v. G. Mazarin to maréchal d'Estrées, 10 July 1640.

²⁸ See Murata, Margaret, ‘Rospigliosiana ovvero, gli Equivoci innocenti’, Studi musicali, 4 (1975), 131–43.Google Scholar

²⁹ According to the Avvisi di Roma for 9 February 1641 in I-Rli ms. 1733, f. 125, only ‘gentlemen’ performed in it. The other play, L'anticamera, was executed instead by ‘gente ordinaria’, according to Castelli (F-Pre C.p. Rome, vol. 73, f. 282v). Hammond noted some of the expenses for this production without identifying the plays; see Hammond, , ‘More on Music in Casa Barberini’ (see n. 3), 247n60.Google Scholar

³⁰ A single-sheet published argomento exists in F-Pre C.p. Rome, vol. 80, if. 186–187. In a letter to Mazarin of 2 February 1642 (vol. 80, f. 114v), Castelli calls it Mero, and reports on its rehearsal in a letter to Mazarin of 23 February (vol. 80, f. 178). Once again Ludovico [Lenzi?] performed, and all received praise from de Lionne and from Benedetti.

³¹ In Prunières, Henry, L'ira italien en France avant Lulli (Paris, 1913; rpt. Paris, 1975), 27Google Scholar; republished in Ghislanzoni, A., Luigi Rossi (Milan, 1954), 189Google Scholar, document VI, from F-Pre C.p. Rome, vol. 80, if. 201–202. Prunières illogically concluded that de Lionne was referring to Castelli's Mi feci quel che non ero.

³² E. Benedetti to G. Mazarin, Rome, 23 February 1642 in F-Pre C.p. Rome, vol. 80, f. 183v.

³³ Prunières, , 47–53Google Scholar; see also Cametti, Alberto, ‘Alcuni documenti inediti su la vita di Luigi Rossi, compositore di musica (1597–1653)’, Sammelbände der Internationalen Musik-Gesellschaft, 14 (1912), 12.Google Scholar

³⁴ Dictionnaire de biographie française, s.v. ‘Harlay, Phillippe de’.

³⁵ [Hugues de Lionne] to [G. Mazarin], Piacenza, 25 March 1643 in F-Pre C.p. Parme, vol. 2, if. 39–41. My tentative attribution to de Lionne is based on his presence in Piacenza, known from a signed letter of 27 March 1643, and similarities in the use of code and Italian in his letters of 1642 in F-Pre C.p. Rome, vol. 80– see if. 465–468, 553–561. It is also clear that the 1643 writer has heard operas in Rome and knows details about the professional comedians in Paris. Part of this letter with an English translation appeared in Curtis, Alan, ‘La Poppea Impasticciata or, Who Wrote the Music to L'Incoronazione (1643)?’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 42 (1989), 42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I have not located Ademollo, Alessandro, ‘Le ambasciate in Italia di Ugo di Lionne’, Rassegna settimanale (1878), no. 19.Google Scholar

³⁶ Bianconi, Lorenzo and Walker, Thomas, ‘Dalla Finta pazza alla Veremonda Storie di Febiarmonici’, Rivista italiana di musicologia, 10 (1975), 397–8, 414.Google Scholar

³⁷ My thanks to Jean Lionnet for notice of this incident, related in a manuscript in I-Rvat Ottoboniana, but naming only ‘Anna cantatrice’, Sforza and the French ambassador. I have not seen Ademollo, Alessandro, ‘Francesco de Noailles ambasciatore francese a Roma nel 1634 e 1636’, Rivista europa, 3 (1877), fasc. II, 16 July.Google Scholar

³⁸ The question remains of whether any musical drama had been performed in the winter of early 1645 in Paris. Alessandro Ademollo proposed Sacrati's Finta para, sung nearly a year before its sumptuous staging in December of 1645 (in I primi fasti della musica italiana a Parigi (1645–1662) [Milan, etc., (1884)], 19Google Scholar). Bianconi and Walker brought this possibility up again on the basis of a documentary notice relating that after their 1644 performance of Finta para in Piacenza, the Febiarmonici were to leave for Paris, called by the queen ( Bianconi, and Walker, , 398Google Scholar). This may be history condensed after the fact, however, as some of them (or another manifestation of them) were called from Florence in March 1645 – the same Febi could not have been in two places, Paris and Florence, at once in 1645. Ademollo's proposal would have been especially attractive if Atto Melani had in fact sung the role of Achille in Finta pazza in 1641. He would then have sung it with Checca Costa rather than Anna Renzi in Paris in the winter of early 1645 and should have then been recalled to sing it in Paris again in December. It is not even certain, however, that the 1645 Carnival work for Paris was an ‘opera’.

Recently Neal Zaslaw has argued for Pier Capponi's nomination of Marazzoli's allegorical comedy II giuditio della Ragione tra Beltà e l'Affetto (in ‘The First Opera in Paris: A Study in the Politics of Art’, in Jean-Baptiste Lully and the Music of the French Baroque, ed. Heyer, J. H. [Cambridge, 1989], 7–23Google Scholar). But in genre, both Francesco Bud's libretto and Marazzoli's score would have been poor representatives of Italian opera, since the work lacks lyricism, demands no virtuoso singing, and requires good Italian (which the French did not have) to understand its jokes and satire. See also The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Sadie, Stanley (London, 1992)Google Scholar, s.v. ‘Marazzoli’.

³⁹ Prunières, (see n. 31), 66–7.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Bianconi, and Walker, , 402.Google Scholar For example, the Roman Margherita Gonfalonieri, a member of the Febiarmonici in August 1646, referred to a prior engagement in Paris (which could have been either for Egisto or Finta pazza).

⁴¹ Prunières, , 375.Google Scholar De Lionne's role is evident in the letter of the equally disgruntled comedian Cantù, Carlo (pp. 375–6)Google Scholar of 10 October 1645, which reports that de Lionne, Mazarin's ‘parciale amico’, had planned to subsidise (at 2,000 scudi!) a ‘novo teatro per musici’, and that, had he lost the services of Torelli to the comedians, de Lionne would have contracted another engineer to come to Paris with the musicians.

⁴² Bianconi, and Walker, , 397–102.Google Scholar

⁴³ Prunières, , 81n3Google Scholar, dated 16 February 1646.

⁴⁴ ‘Guests’ of the court were not promptly compensated, either. After Leonora Baron's return to Rome in late June 1645, her correspondence with Mazarin and M. de Créquy is all about money owed her; see F-Pre C.p. Rome, vol. 91, passim from 1 July to 26 November.