This is the first dedicated study of the musical patronage of Roman baronial families in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Patronage – the support of a person or institution and their work by a patron – in Renaissance society was the basis of a complex network of familial and political relationships between clients and patrons, whose ideas, values, and norms of behavior were shared with the collective. Bringing to light new archival documentation, this book examines the intricate network of patronage interrelationships in Rome. Unlike other Italian cities where political control was monocentric and exercised by single rulers, sources of patronage in Rome comprised a multiplicity of courts and potential patrons, which included the pope, high prelates, nobles and foreign diplomats. Morucci uses archival records, and the correspondence of the Orsini and Colonna families in particular, to investigate the local activity and circulation of musicians and the cultivation of music within the broader civic network of Roman aristocratic families over the period. The author also shows that the familial union of the Medici and Orsini families established a bidirectional network for artistic exchange outside of the Eternal City, and that the Orsini-Colonna circle represented a musical bridge between Naples, Rome, and Florence.

Winner of the 2020 Bainton Prize for Reference Works This volume, edited by Pamela M. Jones, Barbara Wisch, and Simon Ditchfield, focuses on Rome from 1492-1692, an era of striking renewal: demographic, architectural, intellectual, and artistic. Rome’s most distinctive aspects--including its twin governments (civic and papal), unique role as the seat of global Catholicism, disproportionately male population, and status as artistic capital of Europe--are examined from numerous perspectives. This book of 30 chapters, intended for scholars and students across the academy, fills a noteworthy gap in the literature. It is the only multidisciplinary study of 16th- and 17th-century Rome that synthesizes and critiques past and recent scholarship while offering innovative analyses of a wide range of topics and identifying new avenues for research. Committee's statement "The volume includes a multidisciplinary study of early modern Rome by focusing on the 16th and 17th centuries by re-examining traditional topics anew. This volume will be of tremendous use to scholars and students because its focus is very well conceptualized and organized, while still covering a breadth of topics. The authors celebrate Rome’s diversity by exploring its role not only as the seat of the Catholic church, but also as home to large communities of diplomats, printers, and working artisans, all of whom contributed to the city’s visual, material, and musical cultures". Roland H.Bainton Prizes Contributors are: Renata Ago, Elisa Andretta, Katherine Aron-Beller, Lisa Beaven, Eleonora Canepari, Christopher Carlsmith, Patrizia Cavazzini, Elizabeth S. Cohen, Thomas V. Cohen, Jeffrey Collins, Simon Ditchfield, Anna Esposito, Federica Favino, Daniele V. Filippi, Irene Fosi, Kenneth Gouwens, Giuseppe Antonio Guazzelli, John M. Hunt, Pamela M. Jones, Carla Keyvanian, Margaret A. Kuntz, Stephanie C. Leone, Evelyn Lincoln, Jessica Maier, Laurie Nussdorfer, Toby Osborne, Miles Pattenden, Denis Ribouillault, Katherine W. Rinne, Minou Schraven, John Beldon Scott, Barbara Wisch, Arnold A. Witte.

Important centres of charity, hospitality and representation, the national churches of Rome were also major hubs of musical production. This collective work is the fruit of several years of largely unpublished research on the musical life of these institutions, considered for the first time as a whole. What it primarily brings to light is the common model which emerged from the interactions between the national churches, as well as between these and other Roman churches, in musical matters - eloquent example of a unifying cultural paradigm. The repertories used by these churches, the ceremonies and celebrations they orchestrated in the teatro del mondo which Rome constituted at the time, their role in the placing of musicians within the city's professional networks are just some of the themes explored in this work. The cultural exchanges between the national churches and the "nations" that they represented in the pontifical city form another important area of investigation: whether musical or devotional, connecting places of worship and private palaces or extending from one side of the Alps to the other, these exchanges reveal the permeability that characterised many national traditions. At the heart of this richly illustrated study are two fundamental lines of inquiry: the fi rst concerns the processes of identity construction developed by communities installed in foreign lands, the second line of inquiry is cultural hybridity. In pursuing these, we aim to further understanding of the dialectics of exchange at work in Rome during the modern period.

Music and space in the early modern world shaped each other in profound ways, and this is particularly apparent when considering Rome, a city that defined itself as the "grande teatro del mondo". The aim of this book is to consider music and space as fundamental elements in the performance of identity in early modern Rome. Rome’s unique milieu, as defined by spiritual and political power, as well as diplomacy and competition between aristocratic families, offers an exceptionally wide array of musical spaces and practices to be explored from an interdisciplinary perspective. Space is viewed as the theatrical backdrop against which to study a variety of musical practices in their functions as signifiers of social and political meanings. The editors wish to go beyond the traditional distinction between music theatrical spectacles – namely opera – and other musical genres and practices to offer a more comprehensive perspective on the ways in which not only dramatic, but also instrumental music and even the sounds of voices and objects in the streets relied on the theatrical dimension of space for their effectiveness in conveying social and political messages. While most chapters deal with musical performances, some focus on specific aspects of the Roman soundscape, or are even intentionally "silent", dealing with visual arts and architecture in their performative and theatrical aspects. The latter offer a perspective that creates a visual counterpoint to the ways in which music and sound shaped space.

In this volume the author looks at the rise of a cultivated audience whose skill involved listening rather than playing or singing, in the early 17th century.

The relationship between music and painting in the Early Modern period is the focus of this collection of essays by an international group of distinguished art historians and musicologists. Each writer takes a multidisciplinary approach as he or she explores the interface between music performance and painting, or between music and art theory. The essays reflect a variety and range of approaches and offer methodologies which might usefully be employed in future research in this field. The volume is dedicated to the memory of Franca Trinchieri Camiz, an art historian who worked extensively on topics related to art and music, and who participated in some of the conference panels from which many of these essays originate. Three of Professor Camiz's own essays are included in the final section of this volume, together with a bibliography of her writings in this field. They are preceded by two thematic groups of essays covering aspects of musical imagery in portraits, issues in iconography and theory, and the relationship between music and art in religious imagery.

From the late fifteenth to the late seventeenth century, Rome was one of the most vibrant and productive centres for the visual arts in the West. Artists from all over Europe came to the city to see its classical remains and its celebrated contemporary art works, as well as for the opportunity to work for its many wealthy patrons. They contributed to the eclecticism of the Roman artistic scene, and to the diffusion of 'Roman' artistic styles in Europe and beyond. Art and Identity in Early Modern Rome is the first book-length study to consider identity creation and artistic development in Rome during this period. Drawing together an international cast of key scholars in the field of Renaissance studies, the book adroitly demonstrates how the exceptional quality of Roman court and urban culture - with its elected 'monarchy', its large foreign population, and unique sense of civic identity - interacted with developments in the visual arts. With its distinctive chronological span and uniquely interdisciplinary approach, Art and Identity in Early Modern Rome puts forward an alternative history of the visual arts in early modern Rome, one that questions traditional periodisation and stylistic categorisation.