The Portuguese Court’s Acquisition of Musical Scores from Italy in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries and the Fundo do Conde de Redondo

Abstract

ABSTRACT The assembling of a library of musical scores of Italian music and libretti was an enterprise undertaken by the Portuguese court throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The library served a practical need, especially in the wake of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, and expressed the court’s musical taste; as a result, it received significant investment. Information concerning the growth of the library can be found in previous work on the composer Niccolò Jommelli and his heirs, who were involved in sending scores of the composer’s music to Portugal in the 1760s and 1770s. Drawing attention to evidence in Portuguese royal household correspondence that has not been considered fully to date, as well as some of the scores today preserved in two Lisbon libraries, this article offers a wider examination of how music manuscripts came to Portugal from Italy between c.1770 and c.1820.