La musica di Carlo Ambrogio Lonati alla corte di Francesco II d’Este

Carlo Ambrogio Lonati (c. 1645 – post 1701), a multifaceted and in some ways still mysterious figure, came into contact with the Este court of Modena between the end of 1685 and the beginning of 1686. He remained in close contact with the Modenese environment, composing the opera I due germani rivali, with which the Fontanelli Theater was reopened the following autumn. Although the information currently available does not allow us to precisely reconstruct Lonati’s stay in Modena, the study of the Estense musical collection testifies to the sedimentation of his works in the ducal collection and demonstrates that the composer had the opportunity to influence the musical life of that court. The article aims to present some hypotheses are regarding the acquisition of Lonati’s music in Modena, and to propose a review of the attribution problems of his violin compositions through the study of the manuscripts and the archival context to which they belong. The article aims to highlight the interrelationships present between the different sources and offer a comprehensive and updated overview of them. The examination of the Estense manuscripts takes on particular relevance for the study of Lonati’s music, as it offers the possibility of an overall investigation on the sources that transmit both his vocal and instrumental production; in the mean time, it allows us to reconsider these manuscripts in the scope of the collection, in which they have been preserved since Lonati’s time, but still relatively little studied in its entirety, despite the primary importance it has in the panorama of the late seventeenth-century music. In the article, new perspectives emerge on the seventeenth- and early eighteenth century Estense musical background, already investigated in the studies on single composers (including A. Stradella, B. Pasquini, C. Grossi, D. Gabrielli), musicians and singers (B. Castaldi, G.F. Grossi , better known as Siface, P. Benigni), or musical genres and repertoires (sonata, cantata, oratorio, opera, instrumental music), but not yet critically re-evaluated as a whole. Attention is focused on the years of the dukedom of Francesco ii d’Este, which represent the crucial moment of the expansion of the ducal library. The article also investigates the social, cultural and material mechanisms that led to the acquisition of a significant portion of the musical repertoire of the time, shedding light on an important aspect of the music of the late seventeenth century in Northern Italy, even today — unlike centers such as Rome and Naples — not yet sufficiently studied with an updated methodology on a historical-cultural level.