Italian family of patrons. Of Tuscan origin, the Barberini gained their fortune in Rome beginning with the ecclesiastical career of Maffeo (1568–1644), who became a cardinal in 1606 and then Pope Urban VIII (1623–44). His literary and musical interests must be traced from dedications in musical scores, settings of his poetry, his participation in the Florentine Accademia degli Alterati and his sponsorship of such figures as the castrato Loreto Vittori and the poet Giovanni Ciampoli. In the spirit of humanistic textual criticism, the pope himself undertook the revision of the Latin hymns of the breviary (Rome, 1629), which engendered new, competing musical settings by A.M. Abbatini, Filippo Vitali and Gregorio Allegri, of which the last gained formal approval.
Urban VIII raised two of his nephews to the purple, Francesco (1597–1679) and Antonio (1607–71); a third nephew, Taddeo (1603–47), headed the line of the princes of Palestrina, followed by his son Maffeo (1631–85) and grandson Urbano (1664–1722). They were all active patrons of opera, oratorio and chamber music. The two cardinals sponsored numerous musical activities in their several ecclesiastical capacities, for celebrations at their titular churches and as protectors at various times of the Collegio Romano, Seminario Vaticano, Collegio Germanico, Collegio Inglese and several other institutions. Francesco also served as archpriest of the basilica of S Pietro from 1633 to 1667 and Antonio as archpriest of S Maria Maggiore and protector of the choir of the Cappella Sistina (from 1638). Taddeo not only sponsored operas at home and perhaps one of the first narrative ballets (in 1638), but as general of the papal armies he occasioned operas and other types of musical entertainments wherever he sojourned, most notably in Ferrara. Jules Mazarin’s association with Barberini diplomacy and Cardinal Antonio’s exile in Paris (1645–53) prompted the export of Italian opera to France, marked especially by Luigi Rossi’s Orfeo (1647, Paris). These and other members of the family, including later cardinals, nuns and Barberini princesses married into other noble families after 1722, received dedications of musical prints and opera librettos from the 17th century on. Copying Florentine tradition, the Barberini subsidized publication of commemorative scores of their productions of Sant’Alessio (Rome, 1634; music by Stefano Landi), Erminia sul Giordano (Rome 1637; music by Michelangelo Rossi) and La Vita humana (Rome, 1658; music by Marco Marazzoli), all of which included scenographic engravings. What was significant about their patronage of opera in Rome, however, was its establishment as an annual dramatic entertainment for the carnival season, not tied to specific diplomatic or dynastic occasions. Various members of the family supported subscription opera in Rome, once it became established in the late 17th century. Cardinal Francesco the younger (1662–1738), for example, held a box at the Teatro Tordinona in 1690, while his brother Prince Urbano held one at the Capranica and paid one of his regular aiutanti di camera, Giovanni Antonio Haym, to play the violin there that season.
The musicians, poets and librettists that the family supported included one future pope, Clement IX (Rospigliosi) and numerous singers, composers and instrumentalists. Singers who joined the households of Cardinals Francesco and Antonio became virtually family members, often entering as young castratos and being retained well past the age for singing. Angelo Ferrotti, who served Francesco from the late 1620s and retired from the Cappella Sistina in 1654, continued to appear on the cardinal’s salary lists in the 1660s.
116 volumes of the family’s musical holdings were donated to the Vatican library in 1902, consisting largely of collections of secular vocal music of the 17th century and devotional music in Italian, along with some early works for oratories and books of lessons for the lute, guitar and keyboard used by the Barberini children. 11 anthologies of Roman and Venetian opera arias bear the arms of Prince Urbano. The additional 200 liturgical volumes have been catalogued (see Salmon).
The first Cardinal Francesco expressed academic as well as practical interest in music. Study of the drama and music of antiquity undertaken by G.B. Doni, one of his secretaries, influenced the first operas that Francesco commissioned, beginning in the 1630s, and also led to the reconstruction of Seneca’s Troades in 1640 with music by Virgilio Mazzocchi (now lost). Francesco also maintained an interest in music of the immediate past, and under Mazzocchi maintained a viol ensemble to perform Italian madrigals. Theoretical treatises, both printed and manuscript, are included in the Barberini collection, including a 14th-century copy of the Ars nova of Philippe de Vitry and a manuscript presentation copy for Urban VIII of Doni’s Lyra Barberina amphichordos (not published until 1763), seven treatises by Pier Francesco Valentini and the Antiquae musicae auctores septem (Amsterdam, 1652) of Marcus Meibom.
G. Tetio: Aedes Barberinae (Rome, 1642)
A.F. Gori, ed.: De’ trattati di musica di Gio. Batista Doni (Florence, 1763)
L. von Pastor: Geschichte der Päpste seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters (Freiburg, 1886–9); Eng. trans. as History of the Popes (London, 1923–53), xxix, chap. 6
P. Salmon: Les manuscrits liturgiques latins de la Bibliothèque Vaticane (Vatican City, 1968–72)
M. Fumaroli: ‘Cicero pontifex romanus: la tradition rhétorique du Collège Romain et les principes inspirateurs de mécénat des Barberini’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, xc (1978), 797–835
F. Hammond: ‘Girolamo Frescobaldi and a Decade of Music at Casa Barberini, 1634–1643’, AnMc, no.19 (1979), 94–124
M. Murata: Operas for the Papal Court, 1631–1668 (Ann Arbor, 1981)
M. Murata: ‘Classical Tragedy in the History of Early Opera in Rome’, EMH, iv (1984), 101–34
F. Hammond: ‘More on Music in Casa Barberini’, Studi musicali, xiv (1985), 235–61
V. Kapp: ‘Das Barberini-Theater und die Bedeutung der römischen Kultur unter Urban VIII’, Literaturwissenschaftliches Jb, new ser., xxvi (1985), 75–100
M. Murata: ‘Roman Cantata Scores as Traces of Musical Culture and Signs of its Place in Society’, IMSCR XIV: Bologna 1987, 272–84
F. Hammond: Music & Spectacle in Baroque Rome: Barberini Patronage under Urban VIII (New Haven, CT, 1994) [with full bibliography]
MARGARET MURATA