View larger
Prologo fatto già in occasione del futuro felice parto di S.A.R. Maria Luisa Arciduchessa d’Austria nata Infanta di Spagna Granduchessa di Toscana ec. ec. ec. da rappresentarsi in Firenze nella prima sera che la prefata A.S.R. onora colla sua presenza il Teatro di Via della Pergola
sold
- Subjects
- Literature, Italian - Libretti - Early works to 1800
- Authors/Creators
- Del Rosso, Lorenzo Ottavio, active 1767
- Artists/Illustrators
- Stagi, Domenico, c. 1715-c. 1782
- Printers/Publishers
- Stamperia Granducale (Florence), 1767
- Owners
- Feltrinelli, Giannalisa Gianzana, 1903-1981
- Ginori Conti, Piero, principe di Trevignano, 1865-1939
- Other names
- Gluck, Christoph Willibald, 1714-1787
- Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, 1747-1792
- Veroli, Giacomo, 1730-1797
Del Rosso, Lorenzo Ottavio
fl. Florence 1767
Prologo fatto già in occasione del futuro felice parto di S.A.R. Maria Luisa Arciduchessa d’Austria nata Infanta di Spagna Granduchessa di Toscana ec. ec. ec. da rappresentarsi in Firenze nella prima sera che la prefata A.S.R. onora colla sua presenza il Teatro di Via della Pergola.
Florence, Stamperia Granducale, 1767
quarto (220 × 165 mm), (6) ff. signed A6 and paginated 1–12 including engraved title-page featuring the insignia of the Accademia degli Immobili.
provenance prince Piero Ginori Conti (1865–1939), his exlibris1 and crowned cipher stamped in gilt on binding spine — Giannalisa Feltrinelli (1903–1981) — sale by Christie’s, South Kensington, ‘The Giannalisa Feltrinelli Library, Part Six’, London, 2 June 1998, lot 1312
In good state of preservation.
binding nineteenth-century calf-backed boards, gilt crowned cipher gc at foot of spine.
The libretto of a solo cantata performed in the Teatro della Pergola on 22 February 1767, in celebration of the birth of Maria Teresa, the first born of Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo and Maria Luisa di Borbone. That evening ‘Il Teatro fu sfarzosamente illuminato di dentro e di fuori con 40564 lumi con la spesa di £.959.10.8’ and the composition was received with great enthusiasm.2
The Grand Duke had invited the Viennese composer Christoph Willibald Gluck to set the text. Gluck arrived in Florence on February 1st, received the text on the 6th, rehearsed on the 21st, and conducted both the Prologo and Marco Coltellini’s Ifigenia in Tauride (music by Tommaso Traetta) the next day.3 The castrato Giacomo Veroli sang the part of ‘Giove’ in the Prologo and took the role of ‘Pilade’ in Ifigenia in Tauride. The scenery was painted by Domenico Stagi.
These copies are known to the writer
● Florence, Biblioteca del Conservatorio ‘L. Cherubini’4 ● Florence, Biblioteca Marucelliana5 ● Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale6 ● Gubbio, Biblioteca comunale Sperelliana, FA II 18 B 13, 1A ● Milan, Civiche Raccolte d’Arte Applicata e Incisioni, Vol. L–133 16.807 ● Pisa, Biblioteca Universitaria7 ● Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittore Emanuele ii, 35 6 L 13,4.8 ● Unlocated9
The engraved title-page is one designed for Ifigenia in Tauride, with its lettering masked and the correct title substituted by letterpress. The copies at Gubbio and Milan contain a portrait of Maria Luisa engraved by Carlo Faucci after a drawing by Anna Piattoli.10
references Marcello de Angelis, La Felicità in Etruria. Melodramma, impresari, musica, virtuosi: lo spettacolo nella Firenze dei Lorena (Florence 1990), pp.73–74 (title-page of Biblioteca Marucelliana copy reproduced); Claudio Sartori, I Libretti italiani a stampa dalle origini al 1800 (Cuneo 1992), no. 19191 (only Biblioteca Marucelliana copy located); Robert L. and Norma W. Weaver, A Chronology of Music in the Florentine Theater, 1751–1800 (Warren, mi 1993), pp.235–236; Luigi Zangheri, Feste e apparati nella Toscana dei Lorena 1737–1859 (Florence 1996), p.117
1. Egisto Bragaglia, Gli ex libris italiani dalle origini alla fine dell’Ottocento (Milan 1993), no. 2331.
2. Klaus Hortschansky, ‘Gluck e la famiglia Absburgo-Lorena’ in Chigiana 29–30 (1975), pp.571–583; Marcello de Angelis, Melodramma, spettacolo e musica nella Firenze dei Lorena (Florence & Milan 1991), pp.114–116 no. 153.
3. Alfred Wotquenne, Catalogue thématique des oeuvres de Chr. W. v. Gluck (reprint Hildesheim 1963), p.207 no. 36; Cecil Hopkinson, Bibliography of Gluck (London 1959), pp.21, 72; Patricia Howard, Christoph Willibald Gluck: A Guide to Research, Routledge Music Bibliographies (second edition, New York & London 2003), p.37.
4. The partitura manoscritta is in the same library, shelfmark D.I.269. The score was edited by Christoph-Hellmut Mahling for Gluck’s Sämtliche Werke. Abteilung iii: Italienische Opere serie und Opernserenaden, vol. 27 (Kassel & London: Bärenreiter, 2006), with a facsimile of the libretto provided (pp.xiii–xvi).
5. Located by De Angelis, op cit., no.153.
6. Copy exhibited Lo ‘spettacolo maraviglioso’; Il Teatro della Pergola: l’opera a Firenze, catalogue of an exhibition held in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze, 6 October–30 December 2000 (Florence 2000), p.177 no. 3.3.13 (title-page reproduced).
7. Located by Weaver, op. cit., p.235.
8. Located by Francesco Piovano, ‘Un opéra inconnu de Gluck’ in Sammelbände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft 9 (January–March 1908), p.236 note 3.
9. Dominic Winter Book Auctions, ‘Printed books & maps: Important travel & topography, natural history & science’, Cirencester, 7 March 2012, lot 388 (exlibris of Carlo Enrico Rava, 1903–1986); re-offered by Zisska & Lacher, Auktion 64, Munich, 5–6 November 2014, pp.210–211 lot 1030.
10. Giovanni Gori Gandellini, Notizie istoriche degli intagliatori (second edition, Siena 1808), ii, p.14.