HANDEL, ROLLI, AND ITALIAN OPERA IN LONDON IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Abstract

In the Biblioteca Estense at Modena there is a small collection of the letters of Paolo protected from indiscriminate perusal, as the late Dr. Garnett once observed of a somewhat similar piece of calligraphy, by the triple aegis of execrable ink, execrable paper and execrable penmanship. I visited Modena in the Autumn of 1912, and did my best to transcribe and translate all that is decipherable of Rolli's correspondence. The results of my labours are embodied in the following article. I venture to make this personal statement, lest it should be supposed that I have merely borrowed the fruits of Signor Sesto Fassini's researches in the same library, and I may also point out that considerably more of Rolli's correspondence appears in my article than Signor Fassini has yet cared to publish. Nevertheless, I gladly admit my indebtedness to that gentleman's researches on the life and work of and I have no desire to minimize my obligations. His able and accurate work, II Melodramma Italiano a Londra nella prima meta del settecento, has been of the greatest assistance to me in writing the following article, as have also been in a less degree his two pamphlets: II Ritiro del Rolli dall' Inghilterra, (Perugia, 1908); and Dodici lettere inedite di Paolo Rolli, (Torino, 1911). I should like also to acknowledge my debts to Signor Ercole Sola's Curiosita storico-artisticoletterarie trasse dal carteggio dell' inviato estense Giuseppe Riva, published in the Atti e Memorie della R. Deputazione di Storia Patria per le provincie modenesi e parmensi, Serie 3, Vol. 4, (Modena, 1886); to Signora Ida Luisi's authoritative essay: Un poeta-editore del Settecento, published in Miscellanea di studi critici pubblicati in onore di Guido Mazzoni, Vol. 2, (Firenze, 1907); and to Signor A. Salza's: Note biografiche e bibliografiche intorno a Paolo Rolli, (Perugia, 1915).