Discoveries
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Veronese docet.
Besides facing the legendary Gioconda in Paris at the Louvre, the Marriage at Cana by Veronese (1528-1588) – way more funny to behold, and definitely much bigger – served as iconographic source for many musical companies from thereafter. The iconic composition is echoed in numerous works by artists worldwide who took inspiration from Veronese’s painting…
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Bouchardon and Geminiani
Back in 2014 I was asked to write an article for the Festschrift dedicated to Prof. Ton Koopman for his 70th birthday (ed. Albert Clement, Studies in Baroque, Butz Verlag 2014). I wrote a piece on one etching in his collection (TK01747), that I argue is a portrait of Francesco Saverio Geminiani (1687-1742), Italian born…
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The frontispiece of Il Colombo
Il Colombo overo l’India riscoperta, is a ‘dramma per musica’ written by cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in 1690 [link to Googlebook], published under the pseudonym of Crateo Pradelini (anagram of Cardinal Pietro). As one reads on the titlepage ‘da rappresentarsi al teatro tor di Nona’ the libretto was published before the staging (28 December that year).…
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The plate and the painter: on a little discovery in late 2017
Countless are the ways music and visual arts meet. Here is the short account of what was recently discovered behind a painting on copper.* This tale begins at the beginning of last summer, in June, on my trip back from Arezzo. A dear friend in Bologna, Tommaso Pasquali, introduced me to Camillo Tarozzi, a renowned…