Anna Bianco

On Saturday, 19 July, I will have the pleasure of speaking at the prestigious  Biennial Baroque conference, hosted by the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire [https://bcuassets.blob.core.windows.net/docs/19-july-version-060625-133936978328130049.pdf].

Together with Prof. Giulia Giovani (University of Siena), we will present a joint paper titled:

“Alessandro Stradella’s Cantatas and Their Manuscript Journey”.

Our research focuses on a fascinating group of four 17th-century manuscript volumes containing solo cantatas—mostly for alto voice—by Alessandro Stradella and other composers active in Baroque Rome. Once part of the library of John Symmons (1745–1831), a bibliophile and collector based in London, these manuscripts are now dispersed across Hamburg, London, and Saint Petersburg.

While the musical contents are richly documented, a striking feature of these manuscripts is the removal of their original hand-drawn decorative vignettes, which were carefully excised—most likely in the late 18th or early 19th century. These drawings now survive, mounted on album pages, in the collections of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

In our two-part presentation:

Giulia will examine the scribal practices, musical structure, and provenance of the manuscripts;

I will trace the journey of their lost decorations, exploring the iconographic sources, stylistic choices, and material evidence of the cutting process—down to the watermark of the replacement paper.

Our aim is to reconstruct not only the physical unity of these objects, but also their cultural, artistic, and performative significance.
This work reflects our broader interest in fragmentology, visual paratexts, and the life of manuscripts as composite cultural artefacts.

If you’re in Birmingham, come say hello!