Abbatini, Antonio Maria

(b Citt di Castello, 26 Jan 1595; d Citt di Castello, ? after 15 March

1679). Italian composer and teacher. He travelled to Rome with his
brother Guidobaldo, an artist, in 1623 and 1625 (Andrae, 1719),
and was employed at S Giovanni in Laterano from January 1627 to
May 1629. According to his verse autobiography (in I-Rvat) he
served there seven years and some months, or from 1622, but
neither this nor his statement that he held earlier positions in Citt di
Castello and at the Ges in Rome have been confirmed. He
subsequently served as maestro di cappella at the cathedrals of
Citt di Castello (June 1629 to May 1632, December 1635 to
November 1640 and May 1677 to March 1679) and Orvieto
(December 1632 to 1635). In Rome his principal tenures were at S
Maria Maggiore, where he trained boy sopranos (November 1640 to
January 1646, September 1649 to January 1657 and March 1672 to
June 1677), and at S Luigi dei Francesi (November 1657 to March
1667). He directed music briefly at S Lorenzo in Damaso (May to
October 1649) and at S Maria di Loreto (February to November
1657). He was employed briefly from March to October 1667 at the
Santa Casa in Loreto before being recalled to Rome to serve
as bussolante extra muros to Pope Clement IX (Giulio Rospigliosi),
who had earlier been his prefect of music at S Maria Maggiore. He
appears to have retained this office until July 1676, when Clement X
died (Andrae, 63).
Apart from his dramatic cantata Il pianto di Rodomonte, published in
1633 by Pietro Antonio Ubaldoni (a tenor at Orvieto who had sung
under him as a boy in S Giovanni in Laterano), Abbatini's printed
music was exclusively sacred. Of the ten published volumes he
reports in his autobiography (c1667), three volumes of sacre
canzoni (apparently identified as motets by his contemporaries) are
lost, as also is his revision of Palestrina's settings of the hymns of
the Roman breviary, whose Latin had been newly revised by Urban
VIII. (Abbatini's revisions were rejected by the Cappella Sistina, and
it is unclear who was responsible for the edition of the hymns
published in Antwerp in 1644.) Eight motets appeared in various

anthologies between 1643 and 1656, but Abbatini's fame as a

composer of sacred music was secured when Athanasius Kircher's
monumental Musurgia universalis(Rome, 1650) cited his works as a
model of the stylus ecclesiasticus & motecticus, illustrated by his
five-part Jesu dulcis memoria from the fourth book of Sacre canzoni.
Clear textures, firm diatonic harmonies, and melodic lines more
declamatory than melismatic conform to Tridentine standards. With
their lively sense of phrasing, their division into sections by frequent
metrical changes and their suave passages in 3rds and 6ths,
however, the few-voice compositions, especially, can be heard as
precursors of Corelli's generation.
Abbatini probably considered his second most important contribution
to be that as a teacher and scholar. Contracts for the musical
instruction and boarding of putti exist from the 1640s in conjunction
with his first employment at S Maria Maggiore. He counted some
five score followers and more, principally castratos. Domenico dal
Pane became the most notable among them, as an operatic singer,
member of the Sistine and Viennese Imperial chapels, and later as
a maestro di cappella in his own right. From 1658 to 1676 Abbatini
was a stalwart of the Roman Congregazione di S Cecilia, serving as
one of its guardians in 16623, 1666 and 1669. He held public
academies at his own house in the 1660s at which Italian music of
the late 16th century, including unaccompanied madrigals by
Marenzio and Monteverdi, were performed. 15 of his own academic
discourses (dated 16638) survive, dealing in the main with music
theory and contrapuntal technique. His autobiographical sketch
clearly resents the reduced status of the composer as musico in
comparison with the esteem accorded the best singers of the day.
Abbatini had no private patrons and he wrote little chamber music,
but in Rome he moved within the spheres of the Barberini and their
protg Giulio Rospigliosi. Il pianto di Rodomonte was composed for
the Accademia degli Assorditi, originally of Urbino, to a text by a
member of the academy. Berardi reports that madrigals by him were
sung at his academy in the 1660s. The few cantatas attributed to him
have not been dated, but appear in sources from after about 1650
and may also have served the same purpose.

It was probably Abbatini's connection with Giulio Rospigliosi at S

Maria Maggiore that engendered his collaboration with Marco
Marazzoli on the opera Dal male il bene, given for the young Prince
Maffeo Barberini and his new wife during Carnival 1654. Abbatini
alone composed the music for Rospigliosi's La comica del cielo, an
opera about the penitential conversion of a Spanish actress and
based, like Dal male il bene, on a Spanish play. It was staged in
Rome in 1668 under Rospigliosi's papacy, though it may have been
written and partly composed earlier. Both operas portray
contemporary secular characters including humorous subordinates
who have lively dialogue and arias. The ensembles of soloists that
conclude Acts 1 and 3 of Dal male il bene(Marazzoli wrote Act 2 and
the beginning of Act 3) are among the earliest known examples of
the ensemble finale. Both operas also offered a variety of duets and
presented arias in the new longer refrain forms or in cantata-like
scenes. Despite the origins of both librettos, little of their music
attempts to sound Spanish. The musical challenge, rather, was to set
the long stretches of recitative dialogue demanded by the involved
plots. Abbatini's recitative broadened the rate of harmonic change
and provided forward momentum with a firm sense of chord
progression.
Somewhat different was Abbatini's score for Ione, intended for the
celebrations of the marriage of Emperor Leopold I to Margareta
Theresia of Spain. Based on the Greek story of Io, seduced by
Jupiter, and a vengeful Juno, its 12 solo roles call for more arias,
with more florid passages, and greater use of treble instruments to
accompany them. Its choral finales represent a return to the style of
earlier spectacles. The librettist is unknown, and no performance has
been documented. Abbatini did not mention any of his theatrical
scores in recounting his career, yet it is for his operas that he has
been known in modern times.
WORKS
printed works published in Rome unless otherwise stated

sacred
Missa, 16vv (1627)
Il terzo libro di sacre canzoni, 26vv, op.5 (Orvieto, 1634)

Il quinto libro di sacre canzoni, 25vv, op.9 (1638); 2 ed. in Ciliberti, 4 ed. in Andrae
Il sesto libro di sacre canzoni, 25vv, op.10 (1653); 2 ed. in Ciliberti, 3 ed. in Andrae
[2] Antifone a 12 bassi e 12 tenori cantate in S Maria sopra Minerva l'anno
1661 (1677)
Motets in 16431, 16432, 16452, 16492, 16501, I-Bc, Rc, Rsc; 1 ed. in Ciliberti
Jesu dulcis memoria, motet, 5vv, ed. in Kircher [from lost 4th book of sacre canzoni]
Lost: Requiem, 1672, cited in Giazotto; Ky, Gl, 16vv, cited in Andrae; ants, 12 S, 12
A, cited in Baini

secular
Il pianto di Rodomonte (dramatic cantata), 4vv, bc (Orvieto, 1633/R)
Dal male il bene (dramma musicale, 3, Giacomo and Giulio Rospigliosi, after A.
Sigler de Huerta: No ay bien sin ageno dao), Rome, Palazzo Barberini alle Quattro
Fontane, 12 Feb 1654, D-Ms (Act 1), IBborromeo, I-Bc, Rsc (Acts 2 and 3), Rvat (2
copies, 1 partly autograph); collab. M. Marazzoli
Ione (dramma musicale, 3), unperf., A-Wn [dated Rome, 1666]
La comica del cielo (dramma musicale, 3, Giulio Rospigliosi, after L. Vlez de
Guevara, A. Coelho and F. de Roxas: La Baltasara), Rome, Palazzo Rospigliosi a S
Lorenzo in Lucina, 1 Feb 1668, I-Rvat (partly autograph)
Cantatas (all with bc): Ahi, di man de la ragione, 1v, MOe; Amante dubbioso,
1v,MOe; Passati contenti, 1v, F-Pn; Vieni amante, 2vv, I-Fc; Vo cercando la fortuna,
1v,MOe; Voli augello al vento, 1v, Nc, ed. in Andrae
Madrigals, lost, cited in Berardi

WRITINGS
[15] Discorsi, o Lezioni accademiche (MS, 16638, I-Bc), ed. in
Ciliberti
BIBLIOGRAPHY
DBI
ES (N. Pirrotta)
FtisB
LaMusicaD
PitoniN
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A. Ademollo: I teatri di Roma nel secolo
decimosettimo (Rome, 1888/R), 98ff
V. Raeli: Da Vincenzo Ugolini ad Orazio Benevoli nella cappella
della Basilica liberiana (160346) (Rome, 1920)
G. Tebaldini: L'archivio musicale della Cappella
lauretana (Loreto, 1921)
F. Coradini: Antonio Maria Abbatini e Lorenzo Abbatini: notizie

biografiche (Arezzo, 1922)

R. Casimiri: Disciplina musicae e mastri di capella dopo il
Concilio di Trento nei maggiori istituti ecclesiastici di Roma:
Seminario romano Collegio germanico Collegio inglese (sec.
XVIXVII), NA, xv (1938), 567
M. Vezzosi: La commedia musicale romana nel Teatro di
Palazzo Barberini nel secolo XVII (diss., U. of Rome, 1940)
N. Pirrotta: Cesti e Abbatini: opera, Santa Cecilia, ii/3 (1953),
314
W.C. Holmes: ComedyOperaComic Opera, AnMc, no.5
(1968), 92103
I. Kffel: Die Libretti G. Rospigliosis: ein Kapitel frhbarocken
Operngeschichte in Rom (diss., U. of Vienna, 1968)
R. Giazotto: Quattro secoli di storia dell'Accademia nazionale de
Santa Cecilia (Rome, 1970)
M. Murata: Il carnevale a Roma nel secolo XVII, RIM, xii (1977),
8399
M. Murata: Operas for the Papal Court, 16311668 (Ann
Arbor, 1981)
L. Bianconi: Il Seicento (Turin, 1982; Eng. trans., 1987,
as Music in the Seventeenth Century)
J. Burke: Musicians of S Maria Maggiore, Rome, 1600
1700 (Venice, 1984)
J. Lionnet: La musique Saint-Louis des Franais de Rome au
XVIIe sicle, NA, new ser., iii, suppl. (1985)
K. Andrae: Ein rmischer Kapellmeister im 17. Jahrhundert:
Antonio Maria Abbatini (ca. 16001679): Studien zu Leben und
Werk(Herzberg, 1986)
G. Ciliberti: Antonio Maria Abbatini e la musica del suo tempo
(15951679): documenti per una ricostruzione biobibliografica(Perugia, 1986)
B. Brumana: Il Tasso e l'opera nel Seicento: una Gerusalemme
interrompue nella Comica del cielo di RospigliosiAbbatini,Tasso, la musica, i musicisti, ed. M.A. Balsano and T.
Walker (Florence, 1988), 13764
MARGARET MURATA