Nomen omen: Giuseppe Polvini Faliconti impresario del Settecento romano

The article aims to reconstruct the career of Giuseppe Polvini Faliconti, one of the most important impresarios operating in Rome during the first half of the eighteenth century. Polvini Faliconti managed opera seasons at the four major Roman theaters of the time: Pace, Capranica, Tordinona and Argentina, of which he was the first impresario. The author illustrates all the spectacles that were produced by Polvini Faliconti from 1719 to 1741, thanks to numerous and detailed pieces of information about librettists, composers, singers, dedicatees, scene painters, tailors and other artisans. The complete list of scene changes is given for each opera performance staged by Polvini Faliconti. A lot of information from archival documents, avvisi, journals, and diaries, as well as from Pietro Metastasio’s correspondence, enables the author to reconstruct the life of the impresario, also giving some unpublished biographical data about his family. Further, the article draws attention to the Polvini Faliconti’s friendly relations with some eminent figures of eighteenth-century Rome, such as the painter Pier Leone Ghezzi, the printer (specialising in engravings) Filippo de Rossi, the cellist Giuseppe Maria Peroni, and the poet Metastasio; as well as to the patronage of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. According the author, the Venetian cardinal might have exerted an influence on the theatrical life in Rome through the impresario Polvini Faliconti.
The newly found documents enable the author to demonstrate, among other things, that Polvini Faliconti was the owner of the Teatro della Pace, and to disclose the exact fees of the artists who were hired in the 1741 season at the Teatro Argentina, including the ones actually paid to the composers Giuseppe Scarlatti and Nicolò Jommelli.