Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

July 1787. It thus happened that our young people, in particular Bury, who stood on the best footing with the singers and the devotees of music, induced them in an enthusiastic moment to offer to sing and play on some fitting occasion in our salon before us, their warm and admiring friends. This proposal, after being frequently agitated, determined on and postponed, at last came to a happy realization. (..) We found ourselves in a position to invite Madame Angelica, her husband, Hofrath Reiffenstein, Herren Jenkins, Volpato and others to whom we owed services of politeness, to a seemly festival. Jews and upholsterers ornamented the salon, the landlord of the nearest cafe undertook the supply of refreshments. Enough, a brilliant concert was given in the fairest of summer nights, when crowds of people, assembled under our open windows, clapped applause to the song as though they had been in a theatre. But what was more striking, a carriage filled with an orchestra of musical amateurs, taking a nocturnal pleasure-drive through the town, drew up in front of our windows, and, after they had awarded enthusiastic applause to the performance they heard, there arose from their midst a powerful bass voice, fitly appending to the foregoing music one of the most popular airs from the very opera we were giving selections of, accompanied by all the instruments. We returned the fullest applause, the people, too, struck in with spontaneous clapping of hands, and every one asserted that though he had frequently taken part in a night entertainment, he had never been present at one so perfectly and accidentally successful.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe - Italian Journey - Translation by Charles Nisbet.
Goethe is one of many travellers who wrote about the music they heard in Rome; they did not mention however the rich decoration of some of the musical instruments which were used, especially in the palaces of the great Roman families.
This page is about the visual art aspects of some of the instruments which are on display at Museo Nazionale degli Strumenti Musicali, in a building behind S. Croce in Gerusalemme. The museum was founded in 1974 and it was recently redesigned. Another page covers the most imposing Renaissance and Baroque organs and balconies for choirs which can be seen in the churches of Rome.

Small archaeological section: fragment of a fresco depicting a woman playing a two-string instrument (Ist century AD); (inset) four "sistri" (musical instruments associated with the worship of Isis)

The dolphin is an animal that is not only friendly to mankind but is also a lover of music, and it can be charmed by singing in harmony, but particularly by the sound of the water-organ. (..) The skilled harper Arion, when at sea the sailors were getting ready to kill him with the intention of stealing the money he had made, succeeded in coaxing them to let him first play a tune on his harp, and the music attracted a school of dolphins, whereupon he dived into the sea and was taken up by one of them and carried ashore at Cape Matapan. (..) Nightingale: in the first place there is so loud a voice and so persistent a supply of breath in such a tiny little body; then there is the consummate knowledge of music in a single bird: the sound is given out with modulations, and now is drawn out into a long note with one continuous breath, now varied by managing the breath, now made staccato by checking it, or linked together by prolonging it, or carried on by holding it back; or it is suddenly lowered, and at times sinks into a mere murmur, loud, low, a bass, treble, with trills, with long notes, modulated when this seems good - soprano, mezzo, baritone; and briefly all the devices in that tiny throat which human science has devised with all the elaborate mechanism of the flute.
Excerpts from Pliny the Elder - Natural history
Descriptions, paintings, reliefs and mosaics provide ample documentation about the musical instruments which were used by the Romans at funerals or gladiatorial games and by street musicians and actors (see a page on Roman works of art related to theatrical and musical performances).

(left) Detail of the "Five Senses" by Theodor Rombouts (1597-1637) depicting a lute player; (right) an archlute, or "liuto torbiato" (a lute with a neck extension typical of a theorbo) (late XVIth century)

On the 8th November 1644 (at the Chiesa Nuova). The oration being finished, began their motettos, which, in a lofty cupola richly painted, were sung by eunuchs, and other rare voices, accompanied by theorboes, harpsichords, and viols, so that we were even ravished with the entertainment of the evening.
John Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence
March 21, 1659. Wee went straight to S. Marcel, and their heard the most sweete and harmonious musicke, which one, being once out of Rome, must never upon Earth be expected to heare the like. It was composed of at least 20 voyces, organes, Lute, Violl, and two Violins, all which made such melodious and delightful musicke that Cicero with all his eloquence could never discribe the sweetenesse of this more then sweete and harmonious musicke.
Francis Mortoft's Journal of his Travels in France and Italy

2024 temporary exhibition at Musei Capitolini: cardboard panel depicting a 1488 fresco by Filippino Lippi in Cappella Carafa inside S. Maria sopra Minerva; (see another detail of the fresco and also the angels by Melozzo da Forlì)

There is an abundance of depictions of concerts, musicians, and musical instruments by Italian painters. Caravaggio in particular privileged this subject (see a detail of his Flight to Egypt). The depictions often corresponded precisely to instruments owned by the painter' patrons.

Pentangular spinet by Giovan Francesco Antegnati from Brescia (late XVIth century)

Harpsichords and spinets were developed in the XVIth century and they allowed music to be performed in relatively small spaces in chapels or private houses. The Counter-Reformation promoted the iconography of David as the King who composed the Psalter, rather than as the young shepherd who slayed Goliath with the first shot from his sling (as portrayed by Bernini) and King David can be seen playing the lyre in the transept of S. Giovanni in Laterano and in other Roman churches and monuments.
The scene painted in this spinet is interesting because it depicts the Dome of the Rock as symbol of ancient Jerusalem, although this Muslim holy building was erected on the site where the Prophet ascended to Heaven. The development of printing in the XVth century brought about also that of illustrated books and a view of Jerusalem as it was in the XVIth century was published in Civitates Orbis Terrarum (Cities of the World), a book by Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg.

Barberini Harp (1633) and details of its decoration: Barberini coat of arms; Nemean lion; infant Hercules

Some artists enjoyed playing music and even built musical instruments themselves. The design of Arpa Barberini is attributed to Giovanni Battista Soria, an architect who mainly worked for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, but was also involved in the design of the cupboards for the library of Palazzo Barberini. The richly decorated harp was a gift to Marco Marazzoli, a singer, instrumentalist and composer by Cardinal Antonio Barberini iuniore, nephew of Pope Urban VIII. After Marazzoli's death in 1663 the harp was returned to the Barberini.
The Congregation of Musicians under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, Saint Gregory and Saint Cecilia was endorsed in 1585 by Pope Sixtus V, but there was a rivalry between its members and the musicians working at Cappella Sistina. In 1685 the brotherhood set its residence at Cappella di Santa Cecilia inside S. Carlo ai Catinari which was decorated with fine stucco statues portraying angels playing music. Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1691-1739), for whom George Frideric Haendel composed many cantatas, was a very active patron of the brotherhood.
Today's Accademia di Santa Cecilia can be regarded as the heir of the brotherhood.

Harpsichord - Italy 1630 - Neapolitan school

The country-people (of Naples) are so jovial and addicted to music, that the very husbandmen almost universally play on the guitar, singing and composing songs in praise of their sweethearts, and will commonly go to the field with their fiddle; they are merry, witty, and genial. Evelyn
Naples is the nursery of musical professors: a school, where the greatest masters have imbibed their principles, and acquired that knowledge of composition, which has enchanted the ears of all Europe.
Henry Swinburne - Travels in the Two Sicilies. 1777-1780
The decoration of harpsichords is an indication of the prevailing fashion in non-religious painting. In an instrument made in Rome we would expect the depiction of a landscape with ruins of ancient monuments and shepherds, in those made in Naples a very common subject was a marine painting, that is, a port dominated by a lighthouse or a tower, in which boats are moored and small characters animate the scene.

Rectangular spinet by Onofrio Guarracino painted by Nicola Casissa (Naples 1692)

The decoration of some of the musical instruments involved a professional painter in addition to its maker and both signed it. Nicola Casissa was a painter of still-life scenes of fruits, flowers, and birds, a genre which was very popular in Naples. In Rome its best known representative was Mario Nuzzi, aka Mario de' Fiori.

Closing panel of a positive organ - XVIIth century Neapolitan school: putti playing darts

Positive organs were used in the houses and chapels of the rich and in small orchestras. At Naples they were developed as early as the XVth century. The decoration of that shown above strikes for the novelty of the subject. Putti were depicted in antiquity in all sorts of activities, and Renaissance and Baroque artists did the same, but it is a real surprise to see them playing darts.

Small spinet by Giovanni Birger - Milan 1759

The small paintings depict the merry life which went on in an XVIIIth century villa near Milan; some ladies posing as shepherdesses played music, others teased a blindfolded gentleman, or engaged in a mock fight with men. The villa might have been decorated with statues similar to those of Villa Sciarra. In Rome the Farnese had a fake cave in their gardens on the Palatine which served as music room and a place where guests socialized.

Harpsichord panel portraying four Muses - XVIIIth century

In the second half of the XVIIIth century a more composed style came into fashion, which eventually became known as Neoclassicism. It refrained from depicting too crowded scenes, so this harpsichord was decorated with the four Muses who were linked to music, rather than with Apollo or Orpheus surrounded by the Nine Muses as done by Taddeo Zuccari at Casino del Bufalo or by Carlo Innocenzo Carlone in the Belvedere Palace in Vienna.

Grand piano by Anton Simonair - Vienna ca 1820

In the XIXth century the making of musical instruments focussed on the fineness of their sounds rather than on the luxury of their external appearance. The decoration of a grand piano is rather cryptic because it combines the Chariot of Apollo with a naked woman holding an hour-glass, a reminder of Death, but overall the scene pleases the eye.

(left) Cupboard for barrels of a mechanical organ by Anton Beyer for the King of Naples (after 1823); it depicts the Cathedral of Orvieto; (right) detail showing the decoration of a portal

The image used as background for this page is a double symmetrical harp, most likely a theatrical object.