The Performance Space at the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome (1640–1690)
The Performance Space at the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome (1640–1690)

Summary/Abstract: The Roman Cancelleria palace was inhabited by cardinals and vice chancellors Francesco Barberini Senior (1632–1679) and Pietro Ottoboni (1689–1740), both important patrons of the arts; new documents in the Vatican Apostolic Library provide information about the spaces in the palace that were transformed by the two prelates to host musical performances. At the end of 1640 Francesco Barberini ordered the restructuring of a carriage house in the Cancelleria to present La Genoinda ovvero L’innocenza difesa (1641), libretto by Giulio Rospigliosi and music by Virgilio Mazzocchi; ten years after the cardinal’s death, Pietro Ottoboni used the same space to set up his first theatre. It would seem that in the time of the Barberini, some musical events were hosted on the first floor of the Cancelleria in a room later used by Ottoboni for oratories, scenographically set up with the use of stage machinery. Several interpreters of the music in the service of the two cardinals resided in the same building. This study, through the observation of how spaces for music were transformed, focuses on some pieces of music commissioned by Barberini and on the influence he wielded over Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in the context of the transformation of musical theatre in Rome over the course of fifty years (1640–1690).

• Details
• Contents