Carlo Magno, festa teatrale in occasione della nascita del Delfino offerta alle sacre Reali Maestà Cristianissime del Re e Regina di Francia dal cardinale Otthoboni protettore degl'affari della corona

Folio (259x190 mm). [24], 64 pp. Collation: a-b⁶, A-D⁶, E⁸. Frontispiece designed by Cavalier Niccolò Michetti and engraved by Baldassare Gabbuggiani. On title page the engraved coat-of-arms of the king of France. Also, with [13] copperplates designed by Michetti and engraved by Filippo Vasconi, Carlo Grandi, Gasparo Massi and Paolo Pilaja. To indicate where it should be placed, each plate bears the page number of the facing page in Roman numerals in the upper right-hand corner. Introduction in Italian and French with footnotes in Latin, and main text in Italian verse. On pp. 61-64 the text of the Machina che termina il drama, a kind of licenza, celebrating the royal family of France. Contemporary red and gold damask cardboards (spine reinforced, worn and rubbed), preserved in a contemporary blue cloth slipcase. Small marginal tear to l. B3, occasional foxing and browning, all in all a good, genuine copy.

First edition of this rare and important opera libretto celebrating Charlemagne's victories in Italy. It was written by Pietro Ottoboni, nephew of Pope Alexander VIII, to celebrate the birth of the Dauphin, son of King Louis XV and Maria Leszczyska. When the Dauphin was born at Versailles on 4 September 1729, a courier left for Rome carrying the news followed two days later by a letter from the king to the pope. The Cardinal de Polignac, the pope's minister, was ordered to organise the celebrations. He performed a cantata in the courtyard of the Palais Altemps and organised two horse races and a large firework in the Piazza Navona. In such a festive context, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, protector of the Church of France, wrote a play in three acts with two dance interludes by Gioseppe Fonton, which was performed by Giacomo Orti and set to music by Giovanni Battista Costanzi. The Carlo Magno, festa teatrale in occasione della nascita del Delfino offerta alle sacre Reali Maestà Cristianissime del Re e Regina di Francia dal cardinale Otthoboni protettore degl'affari della corona was first staged in the Theatre of the Palazzo Ottoboni in October 1729.

Three different editions of the libretto were actually printed in the same year. A 12mo unillustrated edition with a print run of 3,000 copies; a folio edition (the present) on high-quality writing paper (‘carta da scrivere') in a larger print run of 3,000 copies; and finally, a luxury edition of only 100 copies on high-quality ‘carta reale' in folio format. The second and third editions feature fifteen engravings. The sumptuous edition is also decorated with an ornamental frame surrounding the frontispiece, the engravings and all the text pages.

The libretto is illustrated with 14 engravings, eleven of which show the scenes and two the final Macchina. The play has ten different scene changes, each of which is captured by an engraving. Only in the second act there are two plates, one showing the arrival of Louis in Adelinde's camp and the other the battle that led to the defeat of the Samnites. This explains why there are eleven plates in total. The two plates in the Macchina show the chariot driven by Aurora, accompanied by the three Graces, and the Palace of the Sun, with Apollo on the steps and the Graces approaching him, singing for the glory and happiness of France. The frontispiece is also significant because it shows the theatre designed by Juvarra in the Palace of the Chancellery and the proscenium of the theatre with the eleven members of the orchestra of the time, composed of two cembalists and ten other players at the bottom, one of the first illustrations of an orchestra. The harpsichordist seated on the left is believed to be Costanzi himself directing the orchestra. All the illustrations are framed by a fictitious architectural arch with the king's coat of arms at the top.

“On 24 November 1729, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1667-1740) invited the Roman and European ruling elite to an opulent opera performance in his private theatre in the Palazzo della Cancelleria. The work presented was the Festa teatrale Carlo Magno, with a libretto written by the host himself and set to music by his court musical director, Giovanni Battista Costanzi (1704-1778). The three-act work portrays Charlemagne (747-814) as an exemplary and pious ruler who protects the Pope and the city of Rome, where he is crowned emperor, from the hostile Longobards. The occasion for the performance was the birth of the French dauphin Louis Ferdinand (1729-1765), the first-born son of Louis XV (1710-1774) and Maria Leszczynska (1703-1768). Ottoboni, who had been Cardinal Protector of France since 1709, defending the interests of the French crown at the papal court, made his opera a highlight of the extensive program of festivities organized by the French faction in Rome under the leadership of the ambassador, Cardinal Melchior de Polignac (1661-1741). According to the Diario Ordinario, Ottoboni's invitation was accepted by many illustrious guests, including nineteen cardinals and a large number of prelates, as well as diplomatic representatives of foreign powers, such as the envoys of the Republic of Venice and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Before the performance, printed copies of the libretto, of which Ottoboni had produced three editions, each with a different format and layout, were distributed. The cardinal sent a sumptuous folio edition with engravings, designed by his court painters Francesco Trevisani (1656-1746) and Sebastiano Conca (1680-1764), as a gift to the French royal couple at Versailles. Ottoboni also gave them a luxury copy of the score illuminated with watercolours, which is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris […] The magnificent opera Carlo Magno [was thus] a communication tool used by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni to present Louis XV and his son Louis Ferdinand as the legitimate successors of Charlemagne before the eyes of the Roman society, and to present the French kingship as the protective power of the papacy […] On 13 September 1729, a courier arrived in Rome with good news. Nine days earlier, on 4 September 1729, the French dauphin Louis Ferdinand had been born at Versailles. The birth of the first-born son of Louis XV and Maria Leszczynska seemed to ensure the continuity of the House of Bourbon on the French throne - political news of European significance, given the still vivid memory of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713/14). In a letter, Louis XV instructed his chief diplomat at the Holy See, Cardinal Polignac, to spare no expense or effort in organizing a lavish celebration in Rome to mark the birth of his son […]  The festivities planned by Polignac, which were to begin on 21 November, were to include a solemn mass in the French national church of San Luigi dei Francesi, two horse races in the Via del Corso, a cantata in the courtyard of Palazzo Altemps and a fireworks display in Piazza Navona, which was to be decorated with ephemeral festive apparatus. Cardinal Ottoboni did not want to miss this opportunity to honour the newborn prince and show his loyalty to Louis XY with a magnificent opera. After all, he had represented the interests of the French crown at the papal court for 20 years, since Louis XIV (1638-1715) had appointed him Cardinal Protector of France in August 1709. Although a cardinal protector did not act as the personal representative of a foreign prince like an accredited envoy, he was nevertheless the second most important representative of the latter's interests in the capital of the Papal States, since his cardinalate generally gave him easier and more frequent personal contact with the pontiff. In Pietro Ottoboni, Louis XIV (1638-1715) had appointed as his protector one of the most influential players in the Roman Curia and one of the most colourful figures in the cultural life of Rome. Since his papal great-uncle Alexander VIII (1610-1691) had created him a cardinal and appointed him vice-chancellor in November 1689, the Venetian-born man had been regarded as the last great cardinal-nephew whose lavish patronage of art and music made him an international celebrity. For half a century he was to make the Palazzo della Cancelleria, where he lived for life as Vice-Chancellor, the cultural center of Rome. As soon as he moved in, he had his apartment decorated by a team of artists led by Domenico Paradisi (active 1680-1726) for the enormous sum of 70,000 scudi, and over the following decades he amassed a magnificent collection of paintings, a Museo di Medaglie (Museum of Medals) and one of the largest libraries in Rome. Although a member of the Accademia degli Arcadi, Ottoboni distinguished himself as the founder and host of his own academy, where literary and artistic topics were discussed and cantatas and sonatas by his court musicians Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) and Andrea Adami (1663-1742) were performed. Among the musical highlights of the Cancelleria were the oratorios performed by Ottoboni in the Sala Riaria and the Cortile, and the operas for which he had three theatres built in his residence. Like his great-uncle, Pope Alexander VIII, and his father, Antonio Ottoboni (1646-1720), the Vice-Chancellor was particularly fond of the musical-dramatic genre and wrote several libretti himself, which he had set to music by his court composers and performed on his own stage. Due to the high human and material resources required, the musical theatre was a particularly prestigious instrument of representation that only the great aristocratic and princely houses, such as the Barberini and the Colonna in Rome, could afford. To demonstrate his new status as cardinal-nephew and vice-chancellor, Ottoboni had a theatre built in his palace by Simone Felice Delino (1655-1697) the year after his arrival in 1690. He quickly established a regular theatre, initially staging operas based on his own texts. In April 1709, although deeply in debt, he finally commissioned his court architect Filippo Juvarra (1678-1736) to build a prestigious court theatre. Ottoboni was to perform his Festa teatrale Carlo Magno, written for the birth of the Dauphin, in this theatre in November 1729. This was not a première, however, but a new production: the Cardinal had begun preparations the previous year after learning of the French queen's pregnancy. But when Marie Louise was born on 28 July 1728 instead of the hoped-for male heir, Cardinal Polignac and the other members of the French faction in Rome held back their jubilation. By October, however, Ottoboni was clearly tired of waiting, and on the 10^th of that month he performed a first version of Carlo Magno to an invited audience, but, as Francesco Valesio (1670-1742) noted in his diary, only two acts, as the musicians had not yet rehearsed the third. The opera was performed several times in the following months. When the long-awaited heir to the throne was finally born the following year, Ottoboni agreed with Polignac to allow him, as accredited ambassador, to inaugurate the festivities and to invite him to his magnificent opera only on 24 November, three days after the start of the celebrations. However, when heavy rain began to fall on 21 November, the envoy had to postpone his events for a few days, while Ottoboni was able to stage the Festa teatrale in his theatre as planned, marking the beginning of the French festivities. In a letter to Versailles, Polignac complained that Ottoboni could perform his opera in front of all the cardinals, prelates and religious because the event was taking place indoors, which made him happier than Ottoboni himself, who was at the mercy of the weather with his open-air festival. As reported in the Diario Ordinario, Carlo Magnos public rehearsal, which had taken place a few days earlier on 19 November, had already been praised as ‘riuscito di molto gradimento sì per le esquisite parole, e Musica, che per la vaghezza degli abbiti, e sontuosità delle Machine'. Ottoboni turned the première into a grandiose celebration, illuminating his residence and the surrounding buildings with countless torches, treating the invited guests to exquisite culinary delights, and providing a sumptuous feast for their entourage and servants, so that ‘essendo riuscita, si la recita, che il trattamento, al sommo con sodisfazzione, ed applauso'. As the copy now in Paris shows, Costanzi's music effectively enhanced the dramaturgy of the three-act play. Costanzi, who had been a member of Ottoboni's household as ‘aiutante di camera' since 1721 and succeeded Matteo Fornari (1655-1722) as ‘capo d'istrumenti' the following year, had already made a name for himself as a composer of several cantatas, oratorios and operas and, thanks to Ottoboni's patronage, would later hold a number of important positions as Kapellmeister in Roman churches and produce an extensive oeuvre of sacred music. His Carlo Magno is a splendid opera that surprised audiences with some unusual combinations of sound and must have impressed them with its sometimes virtuoso vocal parts. According to the Paris manuscript, in addition to the string orchestra, the ensemble included two flutes, oboes, hunting horns and trumpets. Two harpsichordists are also depicted in a copperplate engraving of Ottoboni's theatre, which precedes the magnificent libretto. The opening of the work, with its solemn, upbeat sinfonia accompanied by blaring trumpet fanfares, must have moved the invited guests. The key to the political message that Cardinal Ottoboni wanted to articulate with his opera is the printed libretto, of which he had three versions produced. The account books of his household provide information on the format and number of copies of the editions that the cardinal protector commissioned from the printer Antonio De Rossi (1671-1755): first, a simple edition on ordinary paper in a handy octavo format with a print run of 3,000 copies; another on high-quality writing paper (‘carta da scrivere') in a larger print run of 3,000 copies; and finally, a luxury edition of only 100 copies on high-quality ‘carta reale' in folio format. The second and third editions feature fifteen engravings depicting the scenery and the final stage machinery. The sumptuous edition is also decorated with an ornamental frame surrounding the frontispiece, the engravings and all the texts. All three editions contain a ‘Notizia istorica' of the same wording, which presents the hero of the opera, Charlemagne, as an exemplary ruler par excellence, linking him to the French royal house of Bourbon and the dynastic occasion of the festive performance. With numerous references and Latin quotations from the Vita Karoli Magni, the first biography of Charlemagne written by the Franconian scholar Einhard in the 9^th century. The ‘Notizia istorica' praises Charlemagne as a monarch who combined all the virtues of a ruler: he was brave, universally educated, a connoisseur and patron of the arts and, last but not least, a God-fearing defender of the true Catholic faith. He was also ‘il primo della nazione Francese', the first emperor to be elevated to the imperial dignity and the first to be declared a saint. The preface then compares him to Louis XIV, who, like the Carolingians, deserves the epithet ‘the Great' for his religious zeal, his fight against heresy, his military victories on land and at sea, his magnanimity and his wisdom. The hopes and prayers that the current king, Louis XV, would unite the ‘divine virtues' handed down through the generations and pass them on to his son, Louis Ferdinand, were therefore not unfounded. Finally, the preface explains the choice of theme for the play: although the Longobard campaign was only one of Charlemagne's many victories, it provided an opportunity to show the emperor in the city of Rome. This episode was given to the newborn prince as the highest reward for the merits of his great ancestor as an example. The fifteen engravings included in the second and third editions support and extend the political statement made in the preface. Of course, they should not be misunderstood as authentic reproductions of the stage action; rather, such prints are independent works of art that follow the conventions of the genre and idealize what is presented with representative intent. The first engraving, made by Gabbuggiani after Michetti's design, which precedes the frontispiece, prepares the reader for the festive performance with a view of the Teatro Ottoboniano. In front of the stage, an orchestra plays under the direction of the harpsichordist seated on the left, who bears the portrait-like features of Costanzi. At the top of the proscenium, supported by twisted columns reminiscent of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's (1598-1680) canopy in St Peter's, is the coat of arms of the French Dauphin, whose glory is proclaimed by two Fame figures with trombones. On the stage, flanked by four boxes, each with a noble audience, is a high pedestal with an equestrian statue, a copy of Agostino Cornacchini's (1686-1754) equestrian statue of Charlemagne. This monument had been erected only four years earlier, in August 1725, on the southern wall of the vestibule of St Peter's, in response to a religious-political event. After decades of trying to minimize the influence of the papacy on the Catholic Church in France in the so-called ‘Regalia Controversy', Louis XIV welcomed the bull Unigenitus issued by Clement XI (1649-1721) in 1713, in which the pope condemned Jansenism as a heresy. Finally, in 1720, Duke Philippe II of Orléans (1674-1723), who had assumed the regency after the death of the king until Louis XV came of age, forced the French parliament to recognize the bull as law. With the equestrian statue of Charlemagne, commissioned immediately afterwards, Clement XI gave pictorial expression to the reconciliation between the Holy See and the French royal family. The monument, which was unveiled in 1725 in the presence of Benedict XIII (1649-1730), was placed in the Benediction Loggia of St Peter's Basilica as a counterpart to Bernini's famous equestrian statue of the Emperor Constantine († 337), which had stood at the other end of the Loggia since its completion in 1670. Clement XI thus honoured the French royalty, symbolized by the statue of Charlemagne, as the protective power of the papal church. With the subject of his opera Carlo Magno, Cardinal Ottoboni not only drew directly on the papal tribute to the French crown in the form of the equestrian statue, but also presented a replica of this monument on his theater stage: the engraving in question faithfully reproduces the sculptural group and its theatrical setting: a curtain that allows a view of a triumphal arch that explicitly praises Charles as the defender of the Church. The remaining 14 engravings in the second and third editions of Carlo Magno give the reader, who is far away from the festive performance, a vivid impression of the staging in Ottoboni's theater and also support the communication of the political message.  Finally, special attention should be paid to the ornamental frame designed by Girolamo Odam (1681-1741) and engraved by Gasparo Massi (1698-1731), which adorned only the folio edition. Ottoboni's three libretto editions of Carlo Magno were aimed at different audiences. While the simple octavo edition on ordinary paper with an edition of 3000 copies was probably distributed to the majority of the public in the winter of 1729/30, the edition of 3000 copies, printed on higher-quality writing paper in a larger format and including the fifteen engravings, was reserved for higher-ranking guests. The folio edition of the ‘carta reale', limited to 100 copies, was probably only available to the highest echelons of the papal court, but not only there: the cardinal protector also specifically addressed the magnificent libretto to the French royal court […] Ottoboni paid homage to the French royal family with his magnificent opera Carlo Magno, written for the birth of the heir to the French throne and performed several times at his theater in the winter of 1729-30. In making Charlemagne the title hero of his stage work, Ottoboni followed a long tradition of using Charlemagne as a figure of identification for contemporary kings of France, such as Raphael's fresco in the Stanza dell'Incendio in the Vatican Palace, in which the Renaissance artist painted the coronation of Charlemagne by Leo III, giving the main protagonists the facial features of Francis I (1494-1547) and Leo X (1475-1521). Ottoboni's opera, however, unmistakably referred to a more recent initiative of papal art policy: Cornacchini's equestrian statue of Charlemagne, which Clement XI had commissioned in 1720 in response to the French parliament's approval of the bull Unigenitus, and of which Ottoboni placed a copy on his stage. Reconciliation and a relationship of trust between the papal church and the French kingdom were of central importance to Ottoboni, who was also Cardinal Protector of France and Vice-Chancellor of the Papal States. Against the historical backdrop of the Longobard campaign and Charlemagne's coronation as emperor in Rome, he emphasized his role as a role model for all subsequent French kings as a protector of the popes and proclaimed Louis XV as the defender of the city of Rome and the Catholic Church in the symbol of Charlemagne. The opera performances in the Palazzo della Cancelleria were intended to overwhelm the senses of the Roman and international audiences on the spot and convince them of the political message of the work through the interplay of the music played by a large orchestra, the action conveyed by the singers and actors, and the opulent set design with surprising mechanical effects. While the scores sent to the French royal couple were intended to enable them to understand the musical side of the Festa teatrale - and possibly a performance in Paris or Versailles - the printed media ensured that the work reached a wider audience. The libretto prints, of which Ottoboni had three editions produced in different designs, explain and reinforce the political message of his Carlo Magno with textual and visual art. By producing and distributing these printed works, the folio edition of which he sent to the French royal court with a French preface and large-format engravings, Ottoboni hoped to make his magnificent opera and its political message known beyond the time and place of its performance, and to present himself as a generous patron and loyal follower of Louis XV” (T.C. Weissmann, Kardinal Pietro Ottonis Carlo Magno (1729). Politische Botschaft und mediale Verbreitung einer Prunkoper zu Ehren Ludwigs XV., in: “Musik und Politik im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit”, E. Natour & A. Zedler, eds., Böhlau, 2024, pp. 281-306).

Italian Union Catalogue, MUS\0321280; Allacci, 166; Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, vol. 30, pp. 380-383; Library of Congress. Music Division. Catalogue of opera librettos printed before 1800, Washington, 1914, p. 259 (12mo edition); O. Michel, Carlo Magno, Festa teatrale in occasione della nascita del Delfino, Rome, Publications de l'École Française de Rome, 1996, pp. 555-564; Manferrari, II, p. 279; Cicognara, 1497; Berlin Katalog, 4147; Thieme-Becker, XXIV-220.

[13856]