Antonio Grimani «musico galileiano» tra Venezia e Roma

The singer Antonio Grimani is a case study of a musician bred to a Venetian noble family’s service: he was raised in the remarkable palace of the Grimanis, a noble Venetian family of high rank (of the branch dwelling in the parish of Santa Maria Formosa), together with their noble scion Giovanni, which later mentioned him in his last will. The Venetian documents describe the musician as a baptized Turk. Quite probably, contacts of the Grimanis in Rome enabled him to went at the service of Giovanni Ciampoli, a well-known Florentine prelate and writer, and cheer up his convivial meetings with his singing and playing on the theorbo. Antonio Grimani he is cited in some letters which Ciampoli wrote to Galileo Galilei. In Venice the singer was a member of the ducal chapel of St. Mark’s; in the meantime he was hired for the annual feste held in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, and in some of the earliest Venetian operas. Outside the lagoon city, he participated to the Parma’s festa of 1628 (again as a Ciampoli’s protegé), under the musical direction of Monteverdi, that held him in high regard. In this occasion a letter by Ciampoli encourages affectionately a young unnamed musico who can be identified with the singer Grimani. Later he held the title role in Ermiona, the forerunner of Venetian opera (actually a tournament-opera) staged in Padua in 1636. Some letters by Ciampoli shows that Grimani traveled to and from Venice, Rome, and the smal towns in the Marche, where the prelate had been sent as governor, to remove him from Rome, having lost the favour of the pontiff in 1632. During 1620-30s, when Grimani was fully active, he was among the protagonists in transimitting some typical roles of Roman opera in Venetian musical circles. His last documented performance was in Cavalli’s Giasone (1649), in which she played the role of the vecchia Delfa – so that one can guess that he had already lost some of his early vocal skills. Grimani lived in Venice until his death in 1665.

PDF SAMPLE