True Orpheus of the city of Rome

Abstract

Rome before Corelli is not conventionally considered a major centre for the cultivation of instrumental music, despite Peter Allsop’s insistence (in The Italian ‘trio’ sonata: from its origins until Corelli (Oxford, 1992)) on the importance of a Roman ‘school’—in particular, Alessandro Stradella, Carlo Manelli, Carlo Ambrogio Lonati and Lelio Colista—in the development of Corelli’s style after his arrival in Rome from Bologna in around 1675. Colista was a leading member of this group: Athanasius Kircher’s description of him as Vere Romanae Urbis Orpheus shows the 21-year-old composer’s already strong reputation when Kircher’s Musurgia universalis appeared in 1650, even if the Jesuit writer was perhaps influenced by the composer’s probable education among his own order. Over the following 30 years Colista would build a successful career as a lutenist, teacher and composer in the service of some of the most prominent patrons of Roman Society, including the Barberini, Pamphili, Chigi, Colonna and Medici households; he was a frequent performer at the learned Roman Accademie, and regularly participated in oratorios and other large-scale performances at major churches in the city.