Staging a Public Response

In this chapter I consider Maria Mancini’s patronage of music and musicians and her organization and participation in carnival entertainments such as allegorical floats and parades. Maria Mancini had spent several years in France before moving to Rome and her patronage in Rome shows on one hand her taste for public entertainment and on the other her desire, through patronage, to rebel against the oppressive patriarchal society of Rome and respond to the critics who thought she enjoyed too much freedom. This chapter also marks the end of Maria’s stay in Rome. In 1672, after many months of declining health and fears for her life, Maria Mancini decided to escape from Rome, an oppressive relationship with her husband, and a society that never seemed to have accepted her.

Epilogue

On 15 April 1689, at the age of 52, the Contestabile died after a protracted illness that was at first diagnosed as “melancholy,” but that in fact turned out to be an extremely painful and fatal condition. A printed Relazione della felice morte dell’Eccellentissimo Principe Don Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, Gran contestabile del Regno di Napoli...

The Teatro Colonna (1682–1686)

This chapter considers the years following Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna’s return to Rome in 1681 together with his son Filippo II and his new bride, the young Spanish noblewoman Lorenza de la Cerda. As part of his strategy to affirm his newly acquired political and social power as a former Viceroy over the other aristocratic Roman families, Lorenzo Onofrio commissioned the building of a new theater in his palace. This chapter takes a new look at the ways in which the networks of relationships Lorenzo Onofrio had built over the years made his theater one of the most important stages in the Italian peninsula for the circulation of repertory between Vienna, Venice, Rome, and Naples, as well as of singers. Behind some of the most spectacular productions of the Teatro Colonna was a team of extraordinary architects and men of theaters under the leadership of Filippo Acciaioli and Carlo Fontana.

“Dalle sponde del Tebro alle rive dell’Adria”

More than any of their contemporaries in Rome, Lorenzo Onofrio and Maria Mancini Colonna became involved with the activities of the commercial theaters of Venice during the 1660s. Maria found Venice a particularly congenial city for the freedom she could enjoy there, while Lorenzo Onofrio used the periods the couple spent there to raise his public political profile on an international stage. But what really kept bringing them back to Venice was the activity of the commercial opera theaters, which during these years saw an extraordinary number of operas dedicated to the Colonna. This chapter explores the Colonna support of composers, librettists, singers, and impresarios between Rome and Venice and examines the ways in which opera scores and librettos traveled across and beyond the Italian peninsula.

The Colonna, Aristocratic Culture, and the Display of Power in Seventeenth-Century Rome

Patronage of the arts and the sponsorship of events that attracted public attention were essential tools for the Roman elite to negotiate their position within the complex social and political structure of the city. This chapter introduces Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, Maria Mancini, and their cultural milieu in Rome. Their palace in piazza Santi Apostoli became the stage for their support of conversazioni, music-making, and intellectual gatherings. The palace and its collections of paintings, antiquities, arts, and the cycle of frescoes that began to be executed during Lorenzo Onofrio’s life were also essential elements of their self-fashioning and family myth-making.

Introduction

Musical events in early modern Europe have long been considered an essential element of the self-fashioning strategy of patrons and dominant classes, representing and symbolizing their wealth and intellectual finesse as well as promoting their cultural and political agendas. This interpretive key has proved effective in discussing the institution of patronage in early modern Europe, particularly in the contexts of the court and of religious institutions. The situation, however, became more complicated during the second half of the seventeenth century, at a time in which profound social and cultural transformations influenced the production and consumption of music in radical ways....

Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, Viceroy of Naples

During the last months of his life, Lorenzo Onofrio obtained the post he had arguably awaited his entire life, that of Viceroy of the Kingdom of Naples. However, he was allowed to occupy this post for only three months, between November 1687 and January 1688; upon the arrival of the new Viceroy, Colonna had to return to Rome. Despite his very short stay, newly-found documents show that Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna spent a sum of money that was considered “extraordinary” for the time to stage operas. This chapter investigates Lorenzo Onofrio’s patronage in Naples as well as his connections with the Neapolitan musical world.

The Spanish Years

Between 1679 and 1681 Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna took the position of Viceroy of Aragon and moved to Spain for a few years. His time in Saragozza as a noble foreigner in a position of political power proved quite challenging and led him to spend most of his time in Madrid, so that he could also attend the celebrations for the wedding of King Charles II and try to negotiate some sort of deal with Maria, who lived in a convent in the city. The self-fashioning of a foreign diplomat in a new country also relied heavily on his ability to construct his identity through the objects, furniture, paraphernalia, and books that he took with him. This chapter considers Lorenzo Onofrio’s Spanish years, with a particular emphasis on his self-fashioning through the books, scores, and librettos he brought with him on this very meaningful journey.

Music and Theater in Rome after the Teatro Tordinona

This chapter reconsiders the musical life of Rome after the closure of the Teatro Tordinona in 1674, a phase that for many years scholars have considered as “stagnant.” In fact, a closer look at the production of oratorios and operas during the years following the experience of the Teatro Tordinona shows very radical changes in terms of the systems of production in Rome, with a greater involvement of members of the aristocracy in the operatic life of the city as well as the first attempts at establishing commercial and semi-commercial enterprises. But the Holy Year 1675 saw also the proliferation of oratorios around the city, including a previously unknown cycle that took place in the residence of two women, the Baronessa Carusi and her daughter, singers and musicians under Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna’s protection.

“All’uso di Venezia”

The first commercial theater in Rome, the Teatro Tordinona, opened in 1671, and during its short first phase of activity saw the massive import of Venetian operatic repertory for the first time in the history of the city. This chapter explores the contribution of the Colonna to the activities of this theater. More than any of their contemporaries, the Colonna knew the commercial theaters of Rome and contributed to importing not only repertory, but also the system of production of the Venetian models. The production system of the Teatro Tordinona also saw the consolidation of a new type of “collective patronage” of the Roman aristocracy.