113 m e t o d a k o k o l e Z n a n s t v e n o r a z i s k o v a l n i c e n t e r S l o v e n s k e a k a d e m i j e z n a n o s t i i n u m e t n o s t i , L j u b l j a n a OPERA AT HOME: MUSIC IN NOBLE HOUSEHOLDS IN MID-EIGHTEENTH- CENTURY GORIZIA Izvleček: Leta 1744 je bila v Gorici usta- novljena Akademija Filomeletov, v kateri se je združevala mestna elita. Opere so od leta 1740 poslušali v Bandljevem gledališču, najbolj priljubljene arije pa so prepevali tudi doma. Razprava obravnava rokopisno zbirko (I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 3–5), v kateri skoraj četr- tina vseh skladb prihaja iz opusa Giovannija Battiste Pergolesija, v zbirki pa najdemo tudi arije manj znanih avtorjev, kot sta Andrea Bernasconi in Paolo Scalabrini. Ključne besede: Gorica, plemstvo, umetnosti, operne arije, prva polovica 18. stoletja Abstract: In 1744 Gorizia saw the founda- tion of the learned Accademia dei Filomeleti, frequented by the town’s elite. From 1740 the operas were regularly produced in the Bandeu theatre. The most popular arias were also performed privately. A case in point is a manuscript collection (I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 3–5). Nearly a quarter of the pieces are compositions by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, but it also contains arias by lesser-known masters such as Andrea Bernasconi and Paolo Scalabrini. Keywords: Gorizia, nobility, the arts, oper- atic arias, first half of the eighteenth century CC BY-SA 4.0, DOI: 10.3986/dmd21.2.05 DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 113 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 114 In 1750 a local man of letters and cultured disposition, Count Sigismondo Attems- Petzenstein, commissioned for his newly built country villa in Piedimonte del Calvario (today, Podgora in Slovenia), near Gorizia, an unusual oil painting depicting a group of chamber musicians (a singer, a harpsichordist and a violinist), with a group of in- struments in the background (a cello or double bass, a lute, a drum and a trumpet) and a dancing couple placed to the left of the musicians. The musicians and dancers are all fashionably dressed but have dogs’ heads. On a side table behind the dancers we see a figurine of the goddess Diana plus a dog. The scene, with all its details, undoubtedly re- flects the commissioner’s taste and personal attitude regarding the arts of music, dance and possibly also hunting. Perhaps it also alludes to Carnival time and that season’s various secular entertainments. The painter of this curious item was Antonio Paroli from Gorizia, who had learned his craft from Venetian masters.1 Figure 1 | Antonio Paroli (Gorizia?, 1688–Gorizia, 1768), Minuetto, c. 1750, oil on canvas, 47 × 160 cm (Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Gorizia; used by permission) Around six years earlier the Count had engaged the same painter to provide an oil painting to be placed in the centre of the ceiling of the festive hall of his just fin- ished town palazzo: a representation of the gods of Olympus, who included Diana.2 This residence was opened up to a select public on 24 February 1744, when the own- er hosted there the foundational meeting of the Accademia dei Filomeleti, one of the earliest literary and learned academies founded in Gorizia during the eighteenth century. The research for this article was performed within the research programme Researches in the History of Music in Slovenia (p6-0004), funded by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (aris). 1 The painting is described and reproduced in Šerbelj, Antonio Paroli, 106–107. On Antonio Paroli, see pp. 32–51 in the cited catalogue. 2 Šerbelj, Antonio Paroli, 101–102 (reproduction on p. 100); reproduced also in Quinzi, “Rodbinske ambicije”, 69. de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 114 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 115 GORIZIA In 1737, in the course of a rather formal report from his Grand Tour to his benefac- tor, the English traveller Jeremiah Milles3 described Gorizia,4 today a town on Italy’s north-eastern border, as follows: Goritia called in the German language Görtz and capital of a small county, which bears the same name, is situated at the foot of some high mountains which are a part of the Alpes Julian. The town is but small, and the buildings of it not extraordinary, except some few Palaces of the nobility. There is nothing remarkable to be seen in the town, except the monument of Leonard the last Count of Goritia, in the parish church; and a handsome Jesuits college. The castle is situated on a steep hill North of the town: at the summit of it is a small Palace, where the Counts of Goritia resided, but entirely unfurnished. This place is by no means strong; but they have a small garrison of regular militia in it. The Venetian once had possession of it and there still remains the statue of the winged Lyon which is the arms of the Repub- lick. The prospect from this Castle is very agreable, the country being covered with vines. Though the County of Goritia be in the circle of Austria, and consequently in Germany; yet the people affect to call themselves Italians, and say they are of Friuli. They all likewise talk that corrupt Italian of Friuli called Forlano, and hardly any but the nobility can speak German. / The nobility of this county are very numerous but exceedingly poor which obliges them to live at home upon their estates. We were recommended to one of the best familys and introduced to the Governor of the County, who entertained us at dinner, and shewed us great civilitys. The nobility live very sociably together. Later, Milles observes: “Goritia or Goriza is a Sclavonic word signifying a hill.”5 3 On Jeremiah Milles (1714–1784), see Finnegan, Letters from Abroad, 1:56–66. On Richard Pococke and Jeremiah Milles, their background and reports from their travels as presented in the cited edition, see ibid., 5–36. 4 By the end of the eighteenth century Gorizia could boast as many as 200 noble families and had around 6000 inhabitants. The patronage of music by the highest-ranking local nobility is attested by dedications in the surviving printed libretti for local operatic productions and to some extent by their documented active participation in plays featuring music and other aca- demic entertainments. 5 The quotation comes from an unpublished letter dated 14 July 1737 sent from “Cilley” (Celje in Slovenia): GB-Lbl, Add ms 15774 (Milles-Letters, vol. ii, fol. 91r). On Gorizia in the discussed period, see, for example, Cavazza, “Una città italiana nell’impero degli Asburgo”; and on the local nobility, see Cavazza, “Una società nobilare”. For later literature, see also later, n. 15. metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 115 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 116 Also Richard Pococke,6 Milles’s travelling companion on his visit to Europe, re- ported on their visit to Gorizia. Pococke wrote letters of a less formal kind to his mother, telling her about people they met, food they enjoyed or whatever caught his eye. We learn from his letter sent from Ljubljana and written between 30 June and 11 July 1737, that they “waited on the Count & Countess Atemis with a letter; the Count had us to the house of the Governor of the county of Goritia Ct Rabata, who had a brother sovereign Bishop of Passaw. We were introduced to him, he invited us to dine, an old Gentleman of great condescension & politeness […]”.7 THE LOCAL CULTURAL ELITE AND MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENT The Gorizian nobleman Count Antonio Rabatta was the provincial governor from 1733 up to his death in 1741.8 He held numerous titles and worked in circles close to the Viennese Court. He was not only an experienced politician and diplomat but also a learned person and a lover of the arts, especially poetry and music. Count Rabatta reportedly hosted an active circle of nobles at his palazzo in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Its meetings were probably of an academic nature, leading the earliest historians of Gorizia to call them “the school of good manners and polite conversation”.9 It is not surprising that in February 1696 a performance of a mytholog- ical play, L’odio placato, which was acted by local aristocratic amateurs, took place in his palace.10 This play, by an unidentified author, was dedicated to, and possibly written at the behest of, some of the local ladies: “Le Dame”.11 It was accompanied by an intro- ductory “Prologo” set to music by a certain Giambattista Botteoni, Canon of Segna 6 On Richard Pococke (1704–1765), see Finnegan, Letters from Abroad, 1:37–55. 7 Finnegan, Letters from Abroad, 2:221. The originals are in GB-Lbl, Add ms 19940 (Richard Pococke, Voyages in Stiria, Carinthia & Italy, 1737). 8 Antonio de Rabatta (1656–1741). On the Rabatta family, see Geromet and Alberti, 1001 Gorizia 2001, 2:195–203 (on Antonio on p. 197). On Antonio Rabatta in his role as Capitano di Gorizia, see also Morelli, Istoria della Contea di Gorizia, 60. His brother, mentioned in the cited letter from Pococke, was Raymund Ferdinand Graf von Rabatta (1669–1722), Bishop of Passau from 1713 to 1722. 9 In the original: “la casa di lui [Count Antonio Rabatta] aperta alla forestiera, non meno che alla nobiltà paesana divenne la scuola della politezza, e del manieroso conversare”. See Formentini, La Contea di Gorizia, 47. 10 On his involvement with music and opera, see Arbo, Musicisti di frontiera, 24–25 (notes on p. 33); and Kokole, “Operne predstave v Gorici”, 141–142. On early operatic productions in Gorizia, see also Arbo, “Il melodramma al teatro Bandeu”, 7–19. 11 Three copies of the libretto are extant: one is in Milan, in the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense (I-Mb, Coll. Racc.Dramm. 2060), and two are in Rome: one in the Biblioteca musicale governa- tiva del Conservatorio di musica S. Cecilia (Carv.1127), and the other in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale (I-Rn, 35. 4.k.8.1). The second Roman copy is available online: https://books.google.it/ books?vid=IBNR:CR000330105. de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 116 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 117 (today, Senj in Croatia). The three goddesses, Venus, Juno and Athene (in the original: “Venere, Giunone, Pallade”), each have a recitative and a single da capo aria. The play was in three acts, two unidentified intermezzi being inserted between them. Its perfor- mance was also mentioned by an eyewitness, a local historian, poet and priest named Giovanni Maria Marussig (Slov. Marušič), in his manuscript chronicles of Gorizia.12 Dedication of the play to the Ladies of the town ALLE DAME DI GORIZIA. Gentilissime Dame. Eccovi servite col Drama, che mi comandaste. Quando abbia l’onore di incontrare il vostro genio, hò avuto tutto il fine, che io I aveva prefisso ancorchè man- casse in tutte le parti, che prescrivono le Leggi Poetiche. Ogni errore mi servirà di gloria, per esser parto di quella ub- idienza, che si professa. L’Autore.13 The first proper opera seria reached Gorizia — according to present-day knowl- edge — only decades later, in Spring 1740, with the arrival from Klagenfurt of the first, unnamed impresario, invited by the local nobility.14 The first production of the season was a pasticcio of Metastasio’s Siface attributed in the printed libretto to 12 “L’Ecc.mo Cardinal Tannara fù accolto in Casa ecc.ma de Rabatta, ove gli fù esibita un opera in musica da Cavalieri e Damme”. Quoted in Cossàr, Storia dell’arte e dell’artigianato, 90. 13 For data on this libretto, see https://corago.unibo.it/libretto/DRT0030789 (L’odio placato, pp. 3–4). The passage is transcribed also in Arbo, Musicisti di frontiera, 33n63. 14 I have discussed this season in one of my earlier writings. Kokole, “Operne predstave v Gorici”, 142–144 (referencing data new at that time and earlier literature on the subject). metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 117 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 118 Johann Adolf Hasse.15 It was appropriately dedicated to our “old Gentleman of great condescension & politeness”, Count Rabatta, then still governor of the County. The Gorizian nobility heard the second Spring opera of 1740 already in the newly built theatre house. Up to the mid-eighteenth century it hosted eleven serious operas and probably just as many comic intermezzi played between the acts. The drammi per mu- sica known from extant libretti were all pasticcio productions typical for the smaller centres in the southern parts of the Habsburg domains such as Gorizia, Klagenfurt, Ljubljana and Graz.16 The dedicatees named in the earlier libretti were local noblemen and senior government officials.17 For example, Count Purgstall, the “Luogotenente” serving at the time, is named in three libretti between 1740 and 1745.18 Count Wenzel Karl von Purgstall (1681–1749) was born in Prague and raised at the Viennese court.19 He held various military and political posts. By 1741 he had been a resident of Gorizia for fourteen years. He was a lover of the arts, especially 15 The music heard in Gorizia was in fact by various composers, principally the authors of replacement arias. Such substitutions were common in contemporary pasticcio practice and were especially popular among itinerant impresarios working north of the Alps. The literature on this subject is vast, stretching from pioneering writings by Reinhard Strohm (for example, his “Italian Operisti North of the Alps”) to the more recent results yielded by the project Pasticcio: Ways of Arranging Attractive Operas directed by Gesa Zur Nieden and Aneta Markuszewska between 2018 and 2021 (https://pasticcio-project.eu/); the latters’ database unfortunately holds close to no information regarding Gorizia. See also Over and zur Nieden, Operatic Pasticcios in 18th-Century Europe; and an article on the Viennese pasticci of 1750 (Calella and Stummvoll, “Borrowing, Reworking, and Composing”); not forgetting a comprehensive overview in Over, “On the Move”. 16 See, for example, Kokole, “Italijanska opera v notranjeavstrijskih središčih”. 17 They included Antonio de Rabatta, Wenceslao Carlo di Purgstall (to use the Italian form of his name), “Dame e Cavalieri” (a general term embracing all male members of the local nobility, many of them holding positions in the Provincial Estates, and their female family members, most notably spouses), “Incliti stati della Città” (the local government) and Giovanni Giuseppe della Torre. For the full list of opera productions and dedicatees of the eighteenth-century pro- ductions in Gorizia, see the comprehensive table in Kokole, “Operne predstave v Gorici”, 151–156. 18 Arsace in 1740 (the libretto is preserved in I-GOs, St.Pt. 86 u. II), L’odio vinto dall’amore in 1742 (I-GOs, St.Pt. 86 u. III) and Demetrio (I-GOs, St.Pt. 86 u. VIII). All these operatic produc- tions were pasticci with music by a number of different composers. The structure of the earliest productions was comparatively analysed in Kokole, “Italijanska opera v notranjeavstrijskih središčih”. Also extant is the libretto of a cantata composed for Purgstall by Francesco Maggiore that was printed in Udine in 1742 (its title page reads: “Cantata a quattro voci per festeggiare il felice possesso del Capitaniato dell’illustriss. Contado di Gorizia di sua eccellenza signore Wenceslao Carlo del s.r.i. co. di Purgstall lib. bar. […]. Posta in musica da Francesco Maggiore maestro di capella napolitano, e consegrata dal medemo al merito sublime, e sovragrande dello stesso ill.mo sig. conte e capitano.”). 19 On Purgstall’s period as “Capitano di Gorizia”, see Morelli, Istoria della Contea di Gorizia, 61. A portrait of Purgstall is preserved in the Austrian National Library: Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Bildarchiv und Grafiksammlung, Porträtsammlung, Inventar-Nr. PORT_00065039_01. de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 118 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 119 music and theatre, and a member of the local elite. In February 1744 Purgstall — the serving governor of the County of Gorizia — would not have missed the inaugural meeting of the Accademia dei Filomeleti (which lasted only until 1747) in the festive hall of Attems’s palazzo. The host, Count Sigismondo Attems (1708–1758), was the first-born son of Count Giovanni Francesco Attems (1665–1721) and Countess Elisabetta, née Coronini-Cronberg (Elisabetta Lodovica, 1682–1749).20 These were almost certainly the “Count and Countess Atemis” to whom the two English Gentlemen were intro- duced with a letter of recommendation in 1737. Sigismondo was at that time in his late twenties and back home from his schooling in Modena and Salzburg and his sub- sequent Grand Tour of Italy, where he had acquired a great love for the literary arts, historiography and antiquities, the last-mentioned interest being shared by the two earlier-mentioned English visitors in 1737. In 1740 Sigismondo married Countess Maria Giuseppina Lantieri (1721–1790), the daughter of Count Giovanni Federico Lantieri, and niece of his brother Francesco Antonio, who in 1726–1727 hosted at his residence in Vipava, Carniola, the young Carlo Goldoni and his father.21 This wed- ding was sumptuously celebrated in the Lantieri palace — named “Schönhaus” — in Gorizia, an additional cultural hub of the town.22 When Sigismondo Attems was elected, four years later, as the first “Prenci- pe” of the new academy, both of “his” Countesses were undoubtedly present in 20 The most comprehensive information on Sigismondo Attems was written down by his distant relative Maria Victoria Pallavicino-Attems and is based on family archives and Sigismondo’s own manuscript family history (A-Gla, Familienarchiv Attems, k, 19, h. 96: Memorie della Casa d’Attems. Raccolte dal Co. Sigismondo d’Attems sino l’anno 1755); A-Gla, Familienarchiv Attems, Familiengeschichte, Podgora, Kapitel 1. For a short overview, see Martina, “Attems (d’) Sigismondo”. Sigismondo Attems has lately become a subject of interest to cultural and art historians. See, for example, the recent contributions by Quinzi (“Rodbinske ambicije”) and Gomiršek (“Grof Sigismund Attems”). On the period more generally and on Sigismondo’s illus- trious brother (from 1756 first Archbishop of Gorizia, Carlo Michele), see Tavano and Dolinar, Carlo Michele d’Attems; and especially Tavano, “Arte e cultura nella Gorizia”, 375–401 (with refer- ences to earlier literature). 21 This event is cited in numerous articles and books. One of the latest is Makuc, “Grad Rihemberk in Lanthieriji”, 109–113. See also the exhaustive earlier article by Škerlj, “Goldoni presso gli Sloveni”. 22 The Lantieri palace in Gorizia was another place where sessions of the Accademia dei Filomeleti took place. On the Lantieri a Paratico family and their artistic and literary interests and patron- age, see Geromet and Alberti, 1001 Gorizia 2001, 2:333–381; and also a very recent book edited by Miha Preinfalk and Helena Seražin, Grad Rihemberk (especially for the contributions by Neva Makuc, Ferdinand Šerbelj and Tanja Gomiršek). metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 119 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 120 the audience, together with other local ladies.23 His wife’s brother, Count Gasparo Lantieri, became the society’s secretary. Maria Giuseppina’s other brother, Ferdinan- do, had since 1737 been married to Purgstall’s daughter, so the academy was at its core an extended family enterprise.24 The Accademia dei Filomeleti was inspired by the Roman Arcadia and by various Bolognese academies. Sigismondo was indeed a member of one of the latter, possibly the Accademia dei Gelati.25 Its purpose was to promote an erudite conversazione among the members that involved the reading of their poetry or other learned works, with provision for accompanying entertain- ment. In addition to men of letters belonging to local ecclesiastical and aristocratic cir- cles (nobles, priests, monks and teachers), its members included — by special invi- tation — a few illustrious personalities such as Scipione Maffei (1675–1755), Daniele Florio (1710–1789; a well-known poet from Udine) and, last but not least, the Impe- rial Court poet and librettist Pietro Metastasio (1698–1782). Florio was a personal friend of Metastasio; so, too, was Sigismondo Attems, who corresponded with the fa- mous court poet between 1741 and 1756, sending him his own sonnets and some oth- er writings. In one of his letters written in 1737 Attems — for instance — called the poet “Caro amigo Metastasio”.26 During his long life Metastasio maintained friendly 23 In his imagination, based possibly also on the depiction of music and dance on the earlier- described oil painting by Paroli then in the possession of his family, Cossàr went so far as to suggest in his book on past life in Gorizia (in a chapter entitled “Gran festa a Gorizia per l’aper- tura di un’accademia”) that “La sala era andata adagio vuotandosi… Nell’etere, intiepidito dalla cera accesa e dal calore dei convenuti, alitava ancora il profumo di roda e di muschio, mentre in una stanza attigua la contessa Giuseppina aveva lasciato scorrere le dita affusolate sulla tastiera di bosso della spinetta, per un voluttuoso minuetto… Gorizia del 1744!” (Cossàr, Cara vecchia Gorizia, 62). There is, however, no other documentary evidence for this musical event. 24 The surviving documents (registers, minutes of the meetings and recited or read literary or learned works by members) were all transcribed, commented on and published by Ranieri Mario Cossàr in 1945. See Cossàr, “La cultura goriziana”. The information in this paragraph is taken from that article. For family connections, see also Kos, “Iz arhiva grofa Sig. Attemsa”, 134 (he provides a description of Sigismund Attems’s wedding contract, drawn up on 28 November 1739 in Gorizia at the Lantieri palazzo, and mentions all the names of the persons involved, who turn out to be the same as we find among the membership of the same academy: various Lantieri, Attems, Rabatta, Terzi et al.). 25 Interestingly, the Bolognese Accademia dei Gelati served as a model also for the earliest academies and similar societies in Ljubljana, the capital of Carniola: namely, the Academia Unitorum, also called St Dismas’s Brotherhood (from 1688), the learned Academia Operosorum Labacensium (from 1693) and the musical Academia Philharmonicorum (from 1701). See, for example, Kokole, “Academia Philharmonicorum Labacensium”, 38–39. 26 Cossàr, “La cultura goriziana”, 67. On the correspondence between Metastasio and Attems, see Antona-Traversi, Lettere disperse e inedite, 371–381. See also Brunelli, Tutte le opere di Pietro Metastasio, 5:240–421, 696–697, 1138–1139. de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 120 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 121 contact with two other Gorizian families: the Cobenzls and the Coroninis, especially Francesco Coronini.27 One of the pieces recited in the August session of 1745, was an Anacreontic poem by Count Fabio Antonini, Contro la moda, which satirizes current fashion and provides first-hand information on contemporary feminine pastimes, identified as dancing, singing and speaking foreign languages.28 Contro la Moda, anacreontica by Fabio Antonini (1745), 20th stanza Quindi avvien, ch’il Ballo, e ’l canto e i linguaggi forestieri presso lei an’ il bel vanto d’occupar tutti i pensieri, e l’amabile Bellezza. Per qual il fin da lei s’apprezza? Music-making and listening to music, going to the opera — but then also repeat- ing the most fashionable operatic pieces at private domestic gatherings — were all widely practised pastimes among the female nobility, and comparable with the hunt- ing so eagerly engaged in by their menfolk. Hence, maybe, the connection of dogs and the Goddess Diana on the one hand and dancing allied to music-making on the other hand shown in Paroli’s painting for Sigismondo Attems. Academic and other noble gatherings in Gorizia undoubtedly lent cohe- sion to its cultural elite consisting of members of local families known for their artistic patronage and interests and numbering, besides the Attems, also the Coroninis, Lantieris, Cobenzls, Thurns and many others.29 These events, possi- bly after the official sessions had closed, also became occasions for musical enter- tainments, where the more musical members of the assembled public, especial- ly ladies, could show off their talents on various instruments or by singing with instrumental accompaniment, be this only a keyboard instrument for the basso continuo line, sometimes supplemented by two violins and a viola (these, rather than wind instruments, were the most commonly added parts for such purposes). 27 Antona-Traversi, Lettere disperse e inedite, 370–371. See also below, n. 80. 28 See Cossàr, “La cultura goriziana”, 104–107. 29 For more, see Grasso, Nobiltà goriziana & musica. metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 121 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 122 This practice is evident also from contemporary depictions of music-making within the family and other domestic musical events.30 OPERATIC AR IAS IN- AND OUTSIDE THE THEATR E Singing with instrumental accompaniment was indeed very popular. For that purpose, musical scores were acquired either by direct purchase from scribal workshops, espe- cially immediately after premieres, or via commissions based on personal preferences or choices. Soprano arias were particularly fashionable at that time, since they were suitable for the private displays of noble female amateurs — but these could also be transposed an octave lower for the use of tenor voices. We can easily imagine that in Gorizia this type of repertoire for private gatherings included the most popular arias heard at productions at the local Bandeu theatre from 1740 onwards as well as the most fashionable arias and duets sung at various Italian opera houses, most notably in Ven- ice but also in Rome, Naples and other locations frequented by the Gorizian nobility. Evidence for this practice emerges from locally preserved eighteenth-century aria collections listed in catalogues and from articles written by Alessandro Arbo during the 1990s.31 The collections dating from the second half of the eighteenth cen- tury that once belonged to two major cultural figures of the town, Count Francesco Coronini and Count Carlo della Torre, as well as to members of the Attems and Co- benzl families, are relatively numerous, but are not the subject of this article.32 There are, however, only four such collections so far known to me that date from the first half or middle of the eighteenth century. Three of them are held today by the Archiv- io Storico Provinciale (I-GOp) under the shelfmarks Misc. Mus. 1, 2 and 3–5.33 One, in score format, contains thirty arias by Gaetano Latilla and a cantata by Domenico Gallo; some of these items identify the year and a specific theatre as well as the sing- er.34 The second aria collection is dated 1750 at Venice, and the name of Francesco 30 There are numerous cases where female musicians are either playing a keyboard instrument or are shown in the role of a singer. Some of them are accessible online via Wikimedia: for example, a Family Concert by an unknown painter (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:18_ century_house_concert.jpg). See also, for instance, Nicolaes Aartman’s Musical Gathering (https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/200189633) and many similar examples. 31 Arbo, “I fondi musicali a Gorizia”, 17–18 and 22; and Arbo, I fondi musicali dell’Archivio storico provinciale, 15–16 and 21–28. 32 The later, and better-known, phenomenon of (especially Viennese) Hausmusik is therefore not addressed here and lies beyond the scope of this paper dedicated to the situation in the first half of the eighteenth century. 33 Arbo, I fondi musicali dell’Archivio storico provinciale, 115–118. 34 I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 1. The music was heard in Venice in 1751 and in Padua at the Teatro Nuovo in 1753. Arbo, I fondi musicali dell’Archivio storico provinciale, 115. de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 122 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 123 Coronini is added inside the front cover.35 The third one, Misc. Mus. 3–5, to be dis- cussed below, contains no clear indications of provenance, but possesses a possibly somewhat later binding — the same as for the already mentioned collections I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 1 and 2 — that possibly links it to the same Coronini family. The con- tained repertoire is from an earlier period, and so, too, is the selection of arias in the fourth comparable collection, today held by the Biblioteca Pubblica del Seminario Teologico Centrale (I-GO).36 These last two collections were in the past recognized but never catalogued or studied more deeply. This lack of investigation was most probably due to the incom- plete state of their preservation and the absence of named composers. The collection of twenty-four arias and two duets in the I-GO volume lacks vocal parts. Preserved, but likewise incompletely, are its parts for “Violino primo” (completely missing are the arias numbered 11 and 12, and the paper of some of the extant parts is damaged), “Violino Secondo Principale” (missing is the aria numbered 11) and “Basso” (a sim- ple instrumental part; missing is the aria numbered 8). On a flyleaf there has survived also an index: i.e., a list with all the arias and the two duets numbered from 1 to 26. The textual incipits of the arias are present only on the Violino Secondo parts, where the name of a single composer, Bernasconi, also appears on the cover of the aria numbered 19 (“Squalida à te d’intorno”) and the final duet (“Cara l’avverso fato”). The parts were copied out by at least two scribes, one of whom was the person most responsible for the two violin parts and also the Basso part (the initials in titles in the parts for the second violin are rather distinctively ornate), while the second scribe copied out parts for the first violin and added some of the titles in the partbook of the second violin. The latter also added titles of the arias to the “Violino Secondo Principale” parts. The indication “Sig. Bernasconi” or “Bernasconi” for two items led ear- lier researchers to infer that there were even more arias by this composer in the collection, which unfortunately cannot be proved by any more mod- ern means. To place individual arias in this collection is further impeded by the loss of the vocal parts, but I have by good fortune managed to identify, for example, no. 4, “Leon piagato a morte”, which was composed by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. It is perhaps indicative that another copy of this aria has survived in Gorizia in the collection today held by I-GOp and discussed be- low. The provenance of the seminary library collection is impossible to estab- lish beyond the fact that its holdings were copied in the Italian-speaking area.37 35 I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 2. Arbo, I fondi musicali dell’Archivio storico provinciale, 115–116. 36 I-GO, with no shelfmark. In Arbo, “I fondi musicali a Gorizia”, 22, the collection is merely mentioned without being described in any detail. 37 There are annotations in Italian on the verso of the endpapers and the “Violino Primo” part that could also link the collection to circles associated with the Jesuit College in Gorizia or elsewhere. metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 123 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 124 Figure 2 | Title page of the “Violino Secondo Principale” part for no. 26, the duet by Andrea Bernasconi (I-GO; used by permission) The formal layout of the collection, which consists mostly of solo arias (with a bass line and sometimes added violin and viola parts) plus, optionally, an added duet or two, is standard for the period in question, and there are innumerable similar collections preserved today all over the world. Many of them were commissioned or even personally compiled by wealthy and/or musical travellers in Italy. Some of the compositions then apparently in vogue occurred frequently in this repertory — in many cases, the arias have their composers indicated, and sometimes even the titles of the operas and information on theatres and dates of performance, all of which aids the identification of arias from known operas, including ones otherwise lost.38 T H E I- G O p C OL L E C T ION OF A R I A S M I S C . M U S . 3–5 At this point I wish to devote attention to the collection preserved within the Miscel- lanea in I-GOp. On the whole, this collection is similarly incomplete, since the part- 38 I have earlier discussed similar collections drawing on various types of data that have proved helpful to my research into the two Gorizian sources. Especially valuable for identifications is Thomas Gray’s collection, today housed at Yale University Library. See Kokole, “Lasting Musical Effects”. de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 124 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 125 book for the first violin is missing. Three partbooks are extant: “Violino secondo”, “Vi- ola” and “Parte col Basso”. The identification of composers is in this instance easier, for we do have a “Parte col Basso”: a short score for voice and basso continuo. In the collection there are altogether forty-four arias and one duet. It is clear that separate arias were once loose copies and were bound together at some later stage. The edges were trimmed to form partbooks for separate instruments and voice with continuo. All the surviving parts are written on paper of Venetian origin (with three crescents in the watermark) and were copied by a single, probably professional scribe, who also numbered them and compiled a list of all the compositions. The most informative part is the “Parte col Basso”, which contains on its final two pages the above-mentioned list of all the items — that is, the textual incipits of the arias and the duet, albeit without any indications of authorship. The pages are not numbered. There are no recitatives in this collection — only stand-alone arias. A viola part is provided for fewer than half of the arias. The extant copies are well preserved and show few signs of use. There are, however, a few places where corrections have al- ready been inserted by the original scribe — for example, crossed-out bars or an in- serted staff line pasted over on a special strip of paper (in the second violin part of the aria no. 16, “Un’aura placida”, and other places). All but three arias use the c1 clef (for soprano); nos. 2 and 29 employ the c3 clef (alto) and no. 30 the c4 clef (tenor). Some arias have been transposed to the soprano register from their original tenor pitch. I therefore infer that the copies were commissioned for a female end-user. The original scribe indicated the authorship of music only for four out of the forty-five compositions: nos. 1 and 4 by Gioacchino Cocchi, no. 3 by Leonardo Leo and no. 30 by Georg Christoph Wagenseil, all shown in bold in the table in the Ap- pendix. This manuscript clearly evidences how little authorship mattered in the con- temporary “opera industry”, as we would call it today, being stated on less than ten per cent of the compositions. However, a second hand later added names to another twenty-one arias; these are distinguished by the use of bold italic lettering in the table in the Appendix. Eight composers proved identifiable through the finding of matches in the rism and corago databases and other online music resources (these composers’ names are given in italic font), while the authors of eleven further arias for now remain anonymous or are identified only hypothetically by their texts and context (in square brackets). More than half of the arias are settings of Pietro Metastasio’s texts taken from fourteen drammi per musica written by the later Imperial Court Poet between the late 1720s and the mid-1740s: Didone abbandonata (1724), Siroe, re di Persia (1726), Ezio (1728), Catone in Utica (1728), Alessandro nell’Indie (1729), Artaserse (1730), Demetrio (1731), Adriano in Siria (1732), Demofoonte (1733), L’Olimpiade (1733), La clemenza di Tito (1734), Achille in Sciro (1736), Ciro riconosciuto (1736) and Zenobia (1740); metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 125 27. 02. 2026 15:49:01 126 Figures 3a and 3b | Cover of the “Parte col Basso” (above) and first page of the table of contents (below) in the same volume (I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 3; used by permission) de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 126 27. 02. 2026 15:49:02 127 beginning with Demetrio the librettos were written for Vienna, the previous ones orig- inated in Italy.39 Into the last two columns of the table in the Appendix (“Production” and “Year and town”) I have entered the details for operatic productions or perfor- mances that were the putative sources for the copyist of the Gorizian collection. These two columns show only my hypotheses, since this type of information is difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain. According to the data collected so far,40 the items in the collection come from works by ten composers. The Neapolitan composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi leads the way with ten arias and the single duet, followed by Johann Adolf Hasse with five. The remaining eight composers are Leonardo Leo (with 4 arias), Leonardo Vinci (3), Paolo Scalabrini (3), Gioacchino Cocchi (3), Andrea Bernasconi (2) and Giuseppe Arena, Georg Christoph Wagenseil and Vincenzo Legrenzio Ciampi with 1 aria each. The repertoire copied in the Gorizian collection dates from the early 1730s to the mid-1740s, and there are two major groups that call for further discussion. One consists of the prominent Neapolitan composers: Leo, Vinci and especially Pergole- si, and in the other group I would include Scalabrini, Bernasconi, Wagenseil and pos- sibly Hasse — the composers we can link directly to Austrian operatic centres such as Vienna and Graz or to impresarios active there in the years relevant to the collec- tion under discussion. Speaking generally, this is a repertoire that enjoyed popularity along the Venice-Vienna axis, extending beyond it to the Slavic-speaking lands north of Vienna41 around the 1740s. GIOVANNI BATTISTA PERGOLESI’S MUSIC IN GOR IZIA Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736) has been always one of the most beloved Neapolitan composers.42 Not only for his Stabat Mater and La serva padrona, but also 39 This information was obtained with the aid of the corago database https://www.ilcorago.org and cross-checked against the standard modern edition of Metastasio’s works: Brunelli, Tutte le opere di Pietro Metastasio. 40 The data and information on operatic repertoire and early music sources available in rism and similar online databases are increasing daily. That is why it is necessary to stress that the article is based on what was available to me by mid-October 2025. 41 On this region’s interest in Neapolitan music and its remaining musical testimonies, see, for example, Jonášová, “Italienische Opernarien”; Jeż, “Reception of Neapolitan Music”; and espe- cially Perutková, Der glorreiche Nahmen Adami. 42 For more information on the composer, his works and literature on the subject, see Toscani, “Pergolesi”; and Hucke and Monson, “Pergolesi”. Very informative is also an earlier book by Paymer and Williams, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, which also provides an annotated list of literature on the composer and his contemporaries. See also the latest list of modern editions in https://www.fondazionepergolesispontini.com/edizioni-musicali/catalogo-g-b-pergolesi/. In his 1977 catalogue Paymer provides a list of all Pergolesi’s operas together with their arias. See Paymer, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, 43–58. metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 127 27. 02. 2026 15:49:02 128 for his music composed for the productions of serious operas, some only recently discovered by our present-day performers and the public.43 Even though he died very young and worked only in the triangle formed by Jesi, Naples and Rome, his music travelled widely. His operas, and especially their arias, give striking evidence of this popularity. After the composer’s death they were used, reused, or adapted in other con- texts for decades.44 Pergolesi’s arias and the duet represent one quarter of all music preserved in I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 3–5 and deserve a few more words. Out of the eleven items, only three are newly identified. On eight of them we find the name of Pergolesi added by “the second hand” — possibly the volume’s owner or someone else in Gorizia. The Pergolesi arias copied out for whoever commissioned them originated from three of his operas dating from the years 1732–1735 plus an earlier, para-theatrical work or oratorio named La morte di S. Giuseppe (1731). Two arias bearing Pergolesi’s name have an unknown provenance. All the arias by Pergolesi in the Gorizian collection are written for a soprano singer, even though some of them were originally composed for tenor voice. Such is, for example, the aria “Leon piagato a morte” from Pergolesi’s Adriano in Siria on a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, which was premiered in October 1734 in Naples.45 The opera itself did not experience any immediate success, but some of its arias survived as separate items and were reused by the composer himself and by other composers, impresarios and musicians for various pasticci as well as circulating in separate copies for music-making in private settings, such as were the already mentioned events in Gorizian palazzi.46 The “wounded lion”, originally set for Osroa in Act ii, scene 10 43 The latest manifestation of the interest in Pergolesi is a book (2025) by Patrick Barbier that contains a reflection on recent modern interpretations of Pergolesi’s music by the countertenor Philippe Jaroussky. Barbier, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, 159–163. This book includes a selective up-to-date bibliography and discography. 44 A list of these productions is given in Paymer and Williams, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, 7–8. Interestingly, Pergolesi’s arias were reused in some of the same operas as arias by V. Ciampi and by G. Cocchi contained in the Gorizian collection. 45 Metastasio had originally written this libretto two years earlier for Caldara’s setting in Vienna. It is noteworthy that Pergolesi was the composer most beloved by Thomas Gray. In Gray’s collection of scores brought home from his Grand Tour in Italy there are numerous arias by this composer; especially in volumes 7 (copies of the aria “Torbido in volto e nero” and the duet “Nei giorni tuoi felici” that he had most probably heard performed in Florence in 1740), 8 and 10, preserved in the Lewis Walpole Collection at Yale University (US-Fay, Quarto 532 ms 7, 8 and 10). On Gray’s collection, see Kokole, “Lasting Musical Effects”, 92–93 (with mention of earlier literature). 46 It should be noted here that the Neapolitan operatic repertoire and also Pergolesi’s music reached the theatre in Gorizia at latest during the Carnival season of 1742, when a group of singers from Bologna arrived together with the impresario Filippo Dessales. He staged the librettist Francesco Silvani’s opera seria Il Nerone, a pasticcio containing music by “diversi autori Napoletani”, except de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 128 27. 02. 2026 15:49:02 129 of the opera Adriano in Siria, reappeared in radically retexted form as Aminta’s “Son qual per mare ignoto” in the reworked version of Pergolesi’s next opera, L’Olimpiade (Rome, 1735). This aria was often copied out in the eighteenth century either for ten- or or for soprano voice. On the copy of this particular piece, preserved as aria no. 15 in Gorizia, the composer is not named and has been identified through other preserved copies with the aid of rism online.47 Figure 4 | Short score of the aria “Leon piagato a morte” by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. (I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 3; used by permission) Another aria from the Gorizian collection, “Torbido in volto e nero”, was like- wise originally set for tenor voice — for Farnace in Adriano in Siria — but was later assigned to soprano voice. Pergolesi himself arranged it for two orchestras as one of the grand soprano arias for Megacle in his setting of L’Olimpiade. In Gorizia this aria is accompanied only by two violins and basso continuo. Like “Leon piagato a morte”, for the arias: these were composed by Francesco Maggiore, who travelled for the occasion from Bologna to Gorizia. Both operas programmed in the 1742 Carnival season were performed together with comic intermezzi: Il Nerone was partnered by La finta tedeschina, and Orlandini’s L’odio vinto dall’amore by Pergolesi’s famous La serva padrona. 47 rism no. 400170837 (CH-Gc, Rmo 123/1, Ms.10608). metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 129 27. 02. 2026 15:49:02 130 this aria had many variants and circulated widely. Two further arias in the Gorizian collection came from Pergolesi’s Adriano: “Prigioniera abbandonata” and “Chi soffre senza pianto”. Pergolesi’s opera L’Olimpiade was in his day more successful than any of his pre- vious theatrical works. There are two further items from this opera preserved in Go- rizia.48 The aria “Tall’or guerriero invitto” was based on an earlier aria from Adriano, “Sprezza il furor del vento”, and was reassigned for the Roman theatre from baritone to soprano. The only duet in the Gorizian collection, “Ne’ giorni tuoi felici”, comes from the same opera.49 Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Arias in I-GOp Misc. Mus 3–5 La fenice sul rogo, ovvero La morte di S. Giuseppe (oratorio, 1731)50 35. “L’ardor che cresce in seno” (s) Salustia (Naples, 1732)51 32. “In mar turbato e nero” (s; originally t) 39. “Soleva il traditor” (s) Adriano in Siria (Naples, 1734)52 15. “Leon piagato a morte” (s; originally Bar or t) → the music served also for the aria “Son qual per mare ignoto” in L’Olimpiade 22. “Prigioniera abbandonata” (s) 27. “Chi soffre senza pianto” (s) 33. “Torbido in volto e nero” (s; originally t) → the aria was used in its present state also as a replacement aria for Megacle in L’Olimpiade (iii/3; libretto p. 84) L’Olimpiade (Rome, 1735)53 37. “Tall’or guerriero invitto” (s; originally Bar) ← based on the earlier aria in Adriano “Sprezza il furor del vento” 45. “Ne[i] giorni tuoi felici” (ss; originally st) 48 On this aspect, see especially Degrada, “L’Olimpiade di Metastasio e Pergolesi”. 49 It was identified through rism no. 900008672 (US-NH, Misc. Ms. 65). 50 See the list of arias in Paymer, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, 22–23. 51 Ibid., 55–56. A first-ever critical edition by Dale E. Monson is in preparation. See www.fondazionepergolesispontini.com/edizione-nazionale-opere-g-b-pergolesi/ volumi-in-corso-di-pubblicazione/. 52 Paymer, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, 43–44. 53 Ibid., 51–53. de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 130 27. 02. 2026 15:49:02 131 Unidentified context 13. “Manca la guida al piè” (s) 25. “Pace il mio cor” (s) Also of special interest are two arias composed by Pergolesi for his first dram- ma per musica, entitled La Salustia and produced for the Teatro San Bartolomeo in Naples. With some alterations made from the music originally written for it, the op- era was staged in January 1732, but without much success.54 Its libretto was dedica- ted to “Signora Donna Ernestina Margarita Contessa di Harrach, Nata Contessa di Dietrichstein, Vice-Regina di questa Città e Regno”. This Countess was the spouse of the then Neapolitan viceroy, Count Aloys Thomas Raimund Harrach, a high- ranking Austrian nobleman, who was later to become Chancellor of Bohemia. Harrach was a great patron of the arts and a music-lover. In this light, it perhaps comes as no surprise that a few years later, in 1736, the great Moravian music lov- er and patron Count Johann Adam Questenberg55 tried to acquire the score of Pergolesi’s La Salustia through his Viennese acquaintances: first, an unspecified mem- ber of the Auersperg family; and later, Count Harrach.56 But Harrach had by then left Naples and had apparently not been of assistance to Questenberg.57 In July 1737 the last made a third attempt, asking a certain Countess Coronini, who had apparently been, like Auersperg, an invited guest at the operatic productions in Questenberg’s palace at Jaroměřice, to obtain the score for him.58 The Countess was not able to get it, either, so Questenberg’s efforts continued until 1739.59 It is very tempting to hypothesize from this sequence of events that this Countess Coronini had some- thing to do with the aria collection today in I-GOp, which could well have passed down the Coronini family line. She was at all events a member of this same Gorizian family and in close contact with Viennese musical life as well as being au courant with the operatic life and productions in Italian towns. T H E R E P E RTO I R E CO N N ECT E D TO AU ST R I A N O P E R AT I C CI R CL E S? This leads us to the second group of compositions in the Gorizian collection under dis- cussion, which on account of at least three factors hints at an Austrian cultural milieu. 54 See Hucke and Monson, “Pergolesi”; and Toscani, “Pergolesi”. 55 Perutková, Der glorreiche Nahmen Adami. 56 Ibid., 163 and 211. 57 Ibid., 211. 58 Ibid., 161–162 and 211–213. 59 The story is recounted ibid., 211–213. The final known potential provider of the score to Questenberg was the Styrian nobleman and music-lover Count Ignaz Maria Attems, who him- self was noted for his interest in Italian opera. Kokole, “Migrations of Music Repertoire”. metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 131 27. 02. 2026 15:49:02 132 First, the arias of this group are by composers especially popular in Venice and Vienna; second, there are a number of textual concordances with arias used in the pasticcio pro- ductions by the Mingotti brothers, who from 1736 to 1746 were based in Graz, but also organized performances at other German-speaking operatic centres;60 third, and per- haps most importantly, it appears that the main copyist’s hand is in appearance closer to Austrian scribal examples than to Venetian61 — an aspect that would need further investigation beyond the scope of this paper. As in all of Pergolesi’s arias in this source, the vocal parts of most of the neigh- bouring arias are notated in the soprano clef, once again making them suitable for female performers. There are three exceptions. The tenor aria no. 30, “Tu, infedel, non hai difese”, is one of those rare instances where the original scribe troubled to name the composer: in this case, the Viennese composer Georg Christoph Wa- genseil (1715–1777),62 from 1749 a court composer and, so far, one of the very few non-Italian and German-speaking composers detected in this collection. The origi- nal scribe added to the score the direction “con Oboe”; however, no part for the oboe has survived in Gorizia, which of course does not mean that it never existed. The aria comes from this composer’s setting of Metastasio’s La clemenza di Tito (act ii, scene 11), staged in Vienna in 1746,63 which is the latest year so far made apparent in this collection, which otherwise mostly contains arias from the 1730s. Two further, generally much less familiar, names of composers are found in the collection under discussion. Both men are closely connected with Austrian operatic centres. They are Paolo Scalabrini (1713–1806),64 who was probably active already in 173765 in the Mingotti impresa in Graz and subsequently travelled with Pietro Min- gotti’s itinerant company, and Andrea Bernasconi (1706–1784),66 who during the late 1730s was active in Milan, with close links to Vienna and possibly also Graz. Among the three arias in the Gorizian collection bearing the name of Scalabrini, added by the second hand, the origin of one remains unidentified or only possibly 60 On their repertoire during the discussed period I have used especially the “Angang ii” in Müller von Asow, Angelo und Pietro Mingotti, xliii–clxvii; in conjunction with revised and new data published in Theobald, Die Opern-Stagioni. 61 In particular, the shape of the c1 clef is close to that seen in manuscripts copied by Scribe 4 illus- trated in Perutková, Der glorreiche Nahmen Adami, 70–71. 62 Wagenseil is a rather well studied composer. The relevant bibliography is given, for example, in Calella and Stummvoll, “Borrowing, Reworking, and Composing”, 25 (notes 4 and 5). 63 The opera is preserved in Vienna: A-Wn, Mus.Hs.17170. This score is also accessible online at https://data.onb.ac.at/rec/AC14298499. 64 On Paolo Scalabrini, see Müller von Asow, Angelo und Pietro Mingotti, ccxxi–ccxxii. 65 Kokole, “Mingotti Opera Company in Ljubljana”, 152–155. 66 On Andrea Bernasconi, see Sadgorski, Andrea Bernasconi; Aretin, “Andrea Bernasconis Münchner Opern”, especially the pages dedicated to earlier arias today scattered all over the world on pp. 159–168; Kokole, “Andrea Bernasconi’s Earliest Music”. de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 132 27. 02. 2026 15:49:02 133 identified.67 The remaining two probably originate from a pair of Pietro Mingotti’s pasticci first produced in Graz in 1742. The aria no. 16, “Un’aura placida”, appears in act iii, scene 10 of the carnival production of Sirbace,68 and no. 6, “Non so frenare il pianto”, in act ii, scene 12 of the autumn production of Il Demetrio.69 The latter was revived in 1744 in Graz and Hamburg, as well as in 1747 in Leipzig. Since Scalabrini acted as a ‘resident’ composer of the Mingotti impresa in Graz, these identifications seem plausible. Figure 5 | Short score of the aria “Tu, infedel, non hai difese” by Georg Cristoph Wagenseil. (I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 3; used by permission) In the Gorizian collection there is only one aria attributed to Bernasconi: the aria no. 38, “Ah che s’avessi il seno”, for which I found a musical match in the score 67 No. 7 “Col tuo nome, anima bella”, unless it was already used in Graz in 1738 under the guise of “Col tuo nome, Arsinoe, bella” in Angelo Mingotti’s pasticcio La verità nell’ inganno. But without the music for this last-named aria, the hypothesis cannot be verified. 68 Müller von Asow, Angelo und Pietro Mingotti, cxlvii. 69 Ibid., lxxx. metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 133 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 134 of the composer’s setting of Flavio Anicio Olibrio (Vienna, 1737).70 A textual match for this aria appears also in Angelo Mingotti’s libretto L’innocenza riconosciuta, in act iii, scene 6.71 Bernasconi’s second identified aria is a setting of “Ardi per me, fedele”, Metastasio’s text for Didone abbandonata.72 This is Selene’s passionate love aria placed at the beginning of act ii, scene 1, and copied in the Gorizian collection as no. 9. It would appear that it was originally composed for Bernasconi’s setting of Didone abbandonata in Cesena in 1743, or possibly even for an earlier pasticcio or unknown setting of this libretto by Metastasio. In Gorizia the aria bears no indication of the composer, but has been positively identified through comparative research and matching.73 Bernasconi’s music is today very rarely performed at concerts, but in the mid-eighteenth century it apparently circulated widely and was especially prized in the Habsburg lands, Gorizia and other operatic centres. His arias have survived in two unconnected collections in Gorizia, and a number of them in a collection prob- ably originating from Graz but today preserved in Maribor.74 Bernasconi was also a much sought-after composer in Vienna and was popular with the Bohemian and Moravian nobility.75 The connection of the repertoire in the I-GOp collection with that of the Min- gotti company in Graz between 1738 and 1744 is possibly ever closer than hinted above. Unfortunately, in most cases we have only texts to compare, and only rarely musical sources in addition, so the following assumptions must remain hypothetical. There are as many as fifteen textual concordances indicated with asterisks after the titles/textual incipits of the arias listed in the Appendix below.76 Leaving aside the items by Scalabrini and Bernasconi, the potential other composers would be — as expected — Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Leonardo Leo, Leonardo Vinci, Giuseppe Arena and, of course, Johann Adolf Hasse, whose name appears on numerous libret- ti for the productions of both Angelo and Pietro Mingotti. The close political and cultural connections of the Gorizian nobility with Graz offer powerful support to the hypothesis of a connection of the collection in I-GOp with operatic life in the Austrian city. 70 There is more on this opera and Bernasconi’s scattered early arias in Kokole, “Andrea Bernasconi’s Earliest Music”, 210–215 and 221. On Flavio Ancicio Olibrio, see also Perutková, Der glorreiche Nahmen Adami, 180–181. 71 Müller von Asow, Angelo und Pietro Mingotti, cx. 72 This aria is discussed, as an example of Bernasconi’s “aria d’espressione”, in Sadgorski, Andrea Bernasconi, 194–195. 73 The aria and the composer were identified through rism no. 703001885 (B-Bc, 3718) and Bernasconi’s later score preserved in Munich. 74 Kokole, “Migrations of Music Repertoire”, especially the Appendix on pp. 367–373. 75 See especially Perutková, Der glorreiche Nahmen Adami. 76 To establish the concordances, I have used Müller von Asow, Angelo und Pietro Mingotti, the data provided in the “Angang ii”. See also above, n. 60. de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 134 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 135 CONCLUSIONS The repertoire and choice of arias in the collection in question reflect well the charac- ter of eighteenth-century Gorizia, with its largely Italian speaking population and high percentage of nobles among the town’s inhabitants. This small but important segment of its population was politically as well as culturally interposed between Italy and the Habsburg rulers in Vienna. Many members of the local aristocracy held administrative posts of various kinds in other Habsburg centres, especially the Styrian capital of Graz. The arias in the collection I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 3–5 could have been copied by a scribe from Vienna or close to Viennese circles, which would explain the inclusion of a rep- ertoire popular with itinerant impresarios (the Mingotti brothers at the top of the list) and local noble patrons. Neapolitan composers, especially Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, were extremely popular, but so, too, were also locally active Italian and other compos- ers such as Wagenseil, Scalabrini and Bernasconi. Generally speaking, it remains true, however, that an identical repertoire found favour also in North Italian towns such as (leaving aside Venice) Padua and the geographically closer free Imperial city of Trieste, as well as in Vienna and further afield. The arias are preserved in a commonly used format for private use and are mostly for soprano. They were possibly intended for female noble amateur musicians, who were all by default trained in singing and playing an instrument (most often, a key- board instrument). A great number of the copied arias are passionate in character and bravura in style, implying considerable proficiency on the part of their users. The music by the several composers, who at the time stood high in public esteem, was presumably copied some time in the mid-1740s, probably from secondary sources, and disseminated through the agency of impresarios (staging pasticci in Vienna and Graz) at events held at the private dwellings of music-loving Bohemian and Moravian nobles, and, further along the line, local academies, singers and private collectors. Any of these actors could be possibly standing silently behind the collection’s contents. Further, the use of a single scribe for the music hints at a commissioned collec- tion and a choice of individual arias tailored to the personal taste of the end-user. A noble commissioner of this particular selection of arias was most probably, as already suggested above, a member of the Coronini family, and possibly one of the parents or another relative of the “Francesco Coronini” whose name appears on some of the scores in the same archival collection in Gorizia. To enlarge on this point a little: Count Francesco Carlo Coronini Cronberg (1736–1775) was an esteemed poet, a keen traveller, a great enthusiast for the oper- atic music of his time, “Prencipe” of an academy already as early as 1755, and a most welcome frequenter of private noble gatherings in Gorizia.77 If he had been older he 77 The following information comes from Vidic, “Un testamento nelle mani di Casanova”, 85–102. metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 135 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 136 would have fitted well into the earlier-mentioned Accademia dei Filometi. He was born into a prominent and culturally oriented family. His father was Giovanni Carlo Coronini (1706–1787) of Cerou (today Gornje Cerovo in Slovenia), who was him- self an amateur poet, theatre lover and translator of theatrical pieces into Italian. His mother was Cassandra (1703–1788), born in Vienna to Count Giovanni Gasparo Co- benzl (1664–1742), an important courtier in Vienna and the governor of Gorizia and Carniola. She herself was close to the Imperial Court and so au courant with the latest operatic hits. Her brothers were Carlo and Guidobaldo Cobenzl, and the family was known for its musical interests and patronage.78 The couple married in 1729, and Cassandra duly gave birth to many children; after three daughters, Francesco Carlo became the first son. He was sent to Bologna to the Collegio dei Nobili di San Francesco Saverio, where he immersed himself in theatre and undoubtedly music.79 From there, he was sent to Vienna to continue his studies at the Theresianum, and on account of the impoverished state of his family he opted for a military career, which took him to various important European cultural centres. All historians agree that he was above all other things interested in the liter- ary and musical arts and through his expertise in music became a well-loved guest at Gorizian private gatherings (“si rese amabile nelle conversazioni”). Francesco Carlo Coronini (“Contino Corinini”) was also acquainted at an early age, from at least 1755, with Pietro Metastasio, who acknowledged the former’s gift for poetry.80 Just before he died at the age of only thirty-eight in 1775, Coronini himself men- tioned, in his satirical testament written in verse as a joke, his musical scores, some of which most probably belong to the already mentioned musicalia surviving in I-GOp, and which reflect a somewhat later repertoire than that of the collection of arias we have examined. 78 On the Cobenzl family, see the exhaustive recent multi-authored book in two volumes: Vidic and Stasi, I Cobenzl. The father, Giovanni Gasparo, was in 1740 the president of the Academia philharmonicorum in Ljubljana. 79 In Carnival 1751 Francesco Carlo took the role of Egeste in his school’s performance of Idomeneo. A printed programme survives: L’Idomeneo tragedia da’ signori Convittori del Collegio de’ Nobili di San Francesco Saverio di Bologna rappresentata il carnovale dell’anno 1751 (Bologna: Ferdinando Pisarri, 1751). This is preserved in I-Bca, 17 sc.lettcollegi I 02,pos.02 (https://arbor.medialibrary.it/item/894d1dcb-2cf2-480d-a3a1-543d0a22fc93). 80 Cosentino, “Gorizia, Trieste, Vienna”, 245; and Vidic, “Un testamento nelle mani di Casanova”, 87. de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 136 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 137 Music in the Testamento by Count Francesco Carlo Coronini (1775) It is indeed inviting to wonder whether the “Contessa Coronini”, who in 1737 was begged in Vienna by Count Questenberg to acquire the score of Pergolesi’s La Salustia, and the person standing behind the commission (or the one for whom someone compiled the arias and the duet today included in I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 3–5) were one and the same person. Was she perhaps the Contessa Cassandra Coronini, née Cobenzl, mother of the more famous music-lover and collector of scores Francesco Carlo? metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia Item dono e abbandono alle due figlie sue Cassandrina e Giannina la racolta varia, e molta, di duetti, minuetti e divine cavatine de’ migliori noti autori italiani e germani, e una serie d’arie serie del Paisiello Buranello di Piccini e Sacchini le canzoni del Bertoni i rondò del Ramò e i finali immortali dell’Anfossi che s’io fossi re del mondo per secondo.81 81 See Vidic, “Un testamento nelle mani di Casanova”, 113. DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 137 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 138 APPENDIX Table 1 | Arias in the collection at the Archivio Storico Provinciale in Gorizia, Misc. Mus. 3–5 (the quoted incipits have been normalized) TEXTUAL INCIPIT COMPOSER TEXT PRODUCTION YEAR AND TOWN 1 O salvo l’idol mio Cocchi Salvi Adelaide 1743 (Rome) 2 Quella barbara catena Ciampi Federico Lionora 1742 (Naples) 3 Dal tuo voler dipende Leo Metastasio 4 Senza temer d’inganni Hasse Metastasio Siroe, re di Persia 1742 (Parma) 5 Quel cor che mi donasti Cocchi Salvi Adelaide 1743 (Rome) 6 Non so frenare il pianto* Scalabrini Metastasio Demetrio 1742 & 1744 (Graz) 7 Col tuo nome, anima bella* Scalabrini 8 Se viver non poss’io Hasse Metastasio Alessandro nell’Indie 1736 (Venice) 9 Ardi per me, fedele Bernasconi Metastasio Didone abbandonata 1743 (Cesena) 10 L’onda del mar divisa Vinci Metastasio Artaserse 1730 (Rome) 11 Per far le mie vendette Cocchi Silvani Bajazet 1746 (Rome) 12 Spiega le vele al vento [Lalli] [Ipermestra by Mingotti] [1743 (Linz)] 13 Manca la guida al piè Pergolesi 14 Sperai vicino al lido Leo Metastasio Demofoonte 1735 (Naples) 15 Leon piagato a morte* Pergolesi Metastasio Adriano in Siria 1734 (Naples) 16 Un’aura placida* Scalabrini Salvi [Sirbace by Mingotti] [1742 (Graz)] 17 Un cor più misero* Leo [Stampa, C.N.] [Sirbace by Mingotti] [1742 (Graz)] 18 Perder l’amato bene* Hasse Boccardi Cleofide 1731 (Dresden) de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 138 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 139 TEXTUAL INCIPIT COMPOSER TEXT PRODUCTION YEAR AND TOWN 19 Chi fù de miei pensieri 20 No, non vedrete mai* [Bernasconi?] Metastasio [Amor, Odio e Penti- mento by Mingotti] [1740 (Graz)] 21 Caro padre, a me non dei Hasse Metastasio Ezio 1730 (Naples) 22 Prigoniera abbandonata Pergolesi Metastasio Adriano in Siria 1734 (Naples) 23 Confusa, smarrita* Vinci Metastasio Catone in Utica 1728 (Rome) 24 Superbo di Giove 25 Pace il mio cor Pergolesi 26 Perfido ingannatore* Hasse 27 Chi soffre senza pianto Pergolesi Metastasio Adriano in Siria 1734 (Naples) 28 Voi leggete in ogni core* Metastasio 29 Si soffre una tiranna Metastasio 30 Tu, infedel, non hai difese Wagenseil Metastasio La clemenza di Tito 1746 (Vienna) 31 Fra cento affanni e cento Metastasio 32 In mar turbato e nero Pergolesi Morelli Salustia 1732 (Naples) 33 Torbido in volto e nero Pergolesi Metastasio L’Olimpiade 1735 (Rome) 34 Mi palpita il coro Vinci 35 L’ardor che cresce in seno Pergolesi 36 Del sen gl’ardori* Arena Metastasio Achille in Sciro 1738 (Rome) 37 Tall’or guerriero invitto Pergolesi Metastasio L’Olimpiade 1735 (Rome) 38 Ah, che s’avessi il seno* Bernasconi Flavio Anicio Olibrio 1737 (Vienna) 39 Soleva il traditore Pergolesi Morelli Salustia 1732 (Naples) 40 Se tutti i mali miei* Metastasio [Demofoonte by Mingotti] [1739 (Graz)] metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 139 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 140 TEXTUAL INCIPIT COMPOSER TEXT PRODUCTION YEAR AND TOWN 41 Se mai d’un cor che langue* Leo 42 Per tutto il timore* Metastasio 43 Fra cento affanni e cento Metastasio 44 Non vorrei con tuo dolore* 45 Ne’ giorni tuoi felici (a 2) Pergolesi Metastasio L’Olimpiade 1735 (Rome) Bold = composers named in the score by the original scribe Bold italics = composers’ names added by the second hand Italics = newly identified authors * Found in Mingotti’s libretti for Graz and other towns up to 1744. Table 1 | continued de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 140 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 141 BIBLIOGRAPHY MAIN SOURCES Archivio storico provinciale e Biblioteca provinciale di Gorizia (I-GOp). Misc. Mus. 1, 2 and 3–5. Biblioteca pubblica del Seminario teologico centrale, Gorizia (I-GO). No shelfmark. The British Library, London (GB-Lbl). Milles-Letters. Vol. ii., Add ms 15774. LITERATUR E Antona-Traversi, Camillo, ed. Lettere disperse e inedite di Pietro Metastasio, con un appendice di scritti intorno allo stesso. Rome: E. Molino, 1886. Arbo, Alessandro. “I fondi musicali a Gorizia”. Musica & Ricerca nel Friuli-Venezia Giulia 1 (1994): 15–24. Arbo, Alessandro. I fondi musicali dell’Archivio storico provinciale di Gorizia. Gorizia: Musei provinciali, 1994. Arbo, Alessandro. “Il melodramma al teatro Bandeu”. Studi goriziani 71 (1990): 7–37. Arbo, Alessandro. Musicisti di frontiera: le attività musicali a Gorizia dal Medioevo al Novecento. Monfalcone: Edizioni della Laguna, 1998. Aretin, Daniela von [Daniela Sadgorski]. “Andrea Bernasconis Münchner Opern: Überlieferung und Fassungen”. Musik in Bayern 82/83 (2017/2018): 156–178. https://doi.org/10.15463/ gfbm-mib-2018-227. Barbier, Patrick. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Paris: bleu nuit éditeur, 2025. Brunelli, Bruno, ed. Tutte le opere di Pietro Metastasio. 5 vols. Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1954. Calella, Michele, and Günter Stummvoll. “Borrowing, Reworking, and Composing: The Making of the Viennese Pasticci of 1750”. Musicologica Austriaca (Version 1.0, 3 November 2020). https://musau.org/parts/neue-article-page/view/91. Cavazza, Silvano. “Una città italiana nell’impero degli Asburgo”. In Gorizia Barocca: una città nell’impero degli Asburgo, 335–367. Monfalcone: Edizioni della Laguna, 1999. Cavazza, Silvano. “Una società nobilare: trasformazioni, resistenze, conf litti”. In Gorizia Barocca: una città nell’impero degli Asburgo, 211–227. Monfalcone: Edizioni della Laguna, 1999. Cosentino, Paola. “Gorizia, Trieste, Vienna: le lettere di Metastasio a Francesca Torres Orzoni”. In Incroci europei nell’epistolario di Metastasio, edited by Luca Beltrani, Matteo Navone and Duccio Tongiorgi, 231–251. Milano: led, 2020. https://doi.org/10.7359/936-2020-cose. Cossàr, Ranieri Mario. Cara vecchia Gorizia. Gorizia: Libreria Adamo, 1981. Cossàr, Ranieri Mario. “La cultura goriziana e l’Accademia settecentesca dei Filomeleti”. Archeografo Triestino, Serie iv, vol. 8 –9 (=57–58) (1945): 51–117. Cossàr, Ranieri Mario. Storia dell’arte e dell’artigianato in Gorizia. Pordenone: Arti grafiche F.lli Cosarini, 1948. Degrada, Francesco. “L’Olimpiade di Metastasio e Pergolesi”. In Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: L’Olimpiade, edited by Francesco Degrada and Claudio Toscani, 107–111. Jesi: Fondazione Pergolesi-Spontini; Milano: Ricordi, 2002. metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 141 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 142 Finnegan, Rachel, ed. Letters from Abroad: The Grand Tour Correspondence of Richard Pococke & Jeremiah Milles. Vols. 1 and 2. Piltown: Pococke Press, 2012. Formentini, Giuseppe Floreano. La Contea di Gorizia Illustrata dai suoi Figli. Gorizia: Leonardo Formentini, 1984. Geromet, Giorgio, and Renata Alberti. 1001 Gorizia 2001: nobiltà della Contea, Palazzi, Castelli e Ville a Gorizia, in Friuli e in Slovenia. Vol. 2. Monfalcone: Edizioni della Laguna, 1999. Gomiršek, Tanja. “Grof Sigismund Attems (1708–1758) v luči zapuščinskega inventarja”. Kronika 72, no. 3 (2024): 503–518. https://doi.org/10.56420/kronika.72.3.06. Grasso, Gioacchino. Nobiltà goriziana & musica: una galleria di mecenati, compositori, interpreti. Gorizia: Istituto giuliano di storia, cultura e documentazione, 2003. Hucke, Helmut, and Dale E. Monson. “Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista”. In Grove Music Online. Accessed 21 October 2025. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.21325. Jeż, Tomasz. “The Reception of Neapolitan Music in the Monastic Centres of Baroque Silesia”. Pergolesi Studies 8 (2012): 343–369. https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-0351-0523-0/15. Jonášová, Milada. “Italienische Opernarien im Dom zu St. Veit in Prag”. In Italian Opera in Central Europe, 1614–1780, vol. 2, Italianità: Image and Practice, edited by Corinna Herr, Herbert Seifert, Andrea Sommer-Mathis and Reinhard Strohm, 163–206. Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2008. Kokole, Metoda. “Academia Philharmonicorum Labacensium v evropskem okviru”. In 300 let / Years Academia Philharmonicorum Labacensium: 1701–2001, edited by Ivan Klemenčič, 29–56. Ljubljana: Založba zrc, zrc sazu, 2004. Kokole, Metoda. “Andrea Bernasconi’s Earliest Music on its Way North of the Alps”. Musicologica Brunensia 53, Supplementum (2018): 207–226. https://doi.org/10.5817/MB2018-S-14. Kokole, Metoda. “Italijanska opera v notranjeavstrijskih središčih v 18. stoletju: repertoar in izvajalci”. De musica disserenda 1, nos. 1–2 (2005): 75–93. https://doi.org/10.3986/dmd01.1-2.04. Kokole, Metoda. “The Lasting Musical Effects of the Italian Grand Tours of Ignaz Maria von Attems-Heiligenkreutz (1714–1762) and Thomas Gray (1716–1771)”. Arti musices 47, nos. 1–2 (2016): 79–101. Kokole, Metoda. “Migrations of Music Repertoire: The Attems Music Collection from around 1744”. In Musicians’ Mobilities and Music Migrations in Early Modern Europe: Biographical Patterns and Cultural Exchanges, edited by Gesa zur Nieden and Berthold Over, 341–377. Bielfeld: transcript, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839435045-019. Kokole, Metoda. “The Mingotti Opera Company in Ljubljana in the Early 1740s”. In The Eighteenth-Century Italian Opera Seria: Metamorphoses of the Opera in the Imperial Age, edited by Petr Macek and Jana Perutková, 138–163. Colloquia musicologica Brunensia 42. Prague: klp, 2013. Kokole, Metoda. “Operne predstave v Gorici od odprtja gledališča do konca 18. stoletja”. In Barok na Goriškem / Il Barocco nel Goriziano, edited by Ferdinand Šerbelj, 137–158. Nova Gorica: Goriški muzej; Ljubljana: Narodna galerija, 2006. Kos, Franc. “Iz arhiva grofa Sig. Attemsa v Podgori”. Izvestja muzejskega društva za Kranjsko 13 (1903): 109–134. Makuc, Neva. “Grad Rihemberk in Lanthieriji v novoveških historiografskih in spominskih virih iz Beneške republike”. In Grad Rihemberk, vol. 1, edited by Miha Preinfalk and Helena Seražin, 105–120. Castellologica Slovenica, 3. Ljubljana: Založba zrc, zrc sazu, 2025. de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 142 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 143 Martina, Alessandra. “Attems (d’) Sigismondo”. In Dizionario biografico dei friulani. Accessed 21 October 2025. https://www.dizionariobiograficodeifriulani.it/attems-d-sigismondo. Morelli, Carlo. Istoria della Contea di Gorizia. Vol. 3. Gorizia: Patermolli, 1855. Reprint, Gorizia: Arti grafiche Campestrini, 1972. Müller von Asow, Erich H. Angelo und Pietro Mingotti: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Oper im xviii. Jahrhundert. Dresden: Richard Bertling, 1917. Over, Berthold. “On the Move: Itinerant Impresarios as Intermediaries of Operatic Personnel, Music and Spectacle”. In Patrons, Intermediaries, Venetian Artists in Vienna & Imperial Domains (1650–1750), edited by Enricco Lucchese and Matej Klemenčič, 381–395. Storia dello Spettacolo 2. Firenze: Leonardo Libri, 2022. Over, Berthold, and Gesa zur Nieden, eds. Operatic Pasticcios in 18th-Century Europe: Contexts, Materials and Aesthetics. Bielfeld: transcript, 2022. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839448854. Paymer, Marvin E. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, 1710–1736: A Thematic Catalogue of the Opera Omnia. New York: Pendragon Press, 1977. Paymer, Marvin E., and Hermine W. Williams. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: A Guide to Research. New York: Garland, 1989. Perutková, Jana. Der glorreiche Nahmen Adami: Johann Adam Graf von Questenberg (1678–1752) als Förderer der italienischen Oper in Mähren. Specula Spectacula 4. Vienna: Hollitzer, 2015. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv6jmb47. Preinfalk, Miha, and Helena Seražin, eds. Grad Rihemberk. Vol. 1. Castellologica Slovenica 3. Ljubljana: Založba zrc, zrc sazu, 2025. https://doi.org/10.3986/9789610509714. Quinzi, Alessandro. “Rodbinske ambicije Sigismunda grofa Attems Petzenstein v luči umet- nostnih naročil”. Acta historiae artis Slovenica 26, no. 1 (2021): 65–79. https://doi.org/10.3986/ahas.26.1.04. Sadgorski, Daniela. Andrea Bernasconi und die Oper am Münchner Kurfürstenhof, 1753–1772. Munich: utzverlag, 2010. Strohm, Reinhard. “Italian Operisti North of the Alps, c. 1700–1750”. In The Eighteenth-Century Diaspora of Italian Music and Musicians, 1–59. Speculum Musicae 8. Turnhout: Brepols, 2001. Šerbelj, Ferdinand. Antonio Paroli: 1688–1768. Ljubljana: Narodna galerija; Gorizia: Musei Provinciali; Nova Gorica: Goriški muzej, 1996. Škerlj, Stanko. “Goldoni presso gli Sloveni”. Studi Goldoniani 6 (1957): 367–395. Tavano, Luigi, and France M. Dolinar, eds. Carlo Michele d’Attems, primo arcivescovo di Gorizia (1752–1774), fra curia romana e stato absburgico. Vol. 2, Atti del convegno / Prvi goriški nadškof grof Karel Mihael Attems (1752–1774) med rimsko kurijo in habsburško državo. Zv. 2, zbornik predavanj. Gorizia: Istituto di Storia sociale e religiosa, Istituto per gli Incontri culturali mitteleuropei, 1990. Tavano, Sergio. “Arte e cultura nella Gorizia degli Attems”. In Carlo Michele d’Attems, primo arcivescovo di Gorizia (1752–1774), fra curia romana e stato absburgico, vol. 2, Atti del convegno / Prvi goriški nadškof grof Karel Mihael Attems (1752–1774) med rimsko kurijo in habsburško državo, zv. 2, zbornik predavanj, edited by Sergio Tavano and France M. Dolinar, 375–401. Gorizia: Istituto di Storia sociale e religiosa, Istituto per gli Incontri culturali mitteleuropei, 1990. Theobald, Rainer. Die Opern-Stagioni der Brüder Mingotti, 1730–1766. Vienna: Hollitzer, 2015. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv6jmtt5. metoda kokole | music in noble households in mid-eighteenth-century gorizia DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 143 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 144 Toscani, Claudio. “Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista”. In Dizionario biografico degli ital- iani. Accessed 21 October 2025. https://w w w.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ giovanni-battista-pergolesi_(Dizionario-Biografico)/. Vidic, Federico. “Un testamento nelle mani di Casanova: Francesco Carlo Coronini e il Settecento europeo”. Memorie Storiche Forogiuliesi C (2020): 83–116. Vidic, Federico, and Alessio Stasi, eds. I Cobenzl: una famiglia europea tra politica, arte e diplomazia (1508–1823). 2 vols. Roma: Lithos; Gorizia: Archivio di Stato di Gorizia, 2022. de musica disserenda xxi/ @ DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 144 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 145 P o v z e t e k opera na domu: glasba v goriških plemiških palačah sredi 18. stoletja Kulturno življenje višjih družbenih slojev se je v Gorici 18. stoletja odvijalo na redkih jav- nih mestih (na primer v leta 1740 zgrajenem Bandljevem gledališču), predvsem pa v zaseb- nih prostorih, domačih salonih. Domačin grof Sigismund Attems je na primer leta 1744 v slavnostni dvorani svoje novo opremljene palače gostil prvo srečanje Akademije Filomele- tov. Na njenih srečanjih se je zbirala mestna elita, predvsem člani plemiških družin Attems, Lantieri, Coronini, Della Torre idr. Mnogi od njih so bili tudi ljubitelji glasbe in gledališča. Sopranske arije, ki so jih Goričani poslušali v svojem gledališču ali pa se nad njimi navdu- ševali v drugih opernih središčih po Italiji in drugod, so bile še posebno priljubljene. Pri- merne so bile za domače muziciranje in pogosto so v vlogi glasbenic nastopale plemenite gospe. V Gorici se je ohranila peščica nekdaj zasebnih zbirk tovrstnega repertoarja. Da- nes jih najdemo v Zgodovinskem pokrajinskem arhivu (I-GOp) in v Semeniški knjižnici (I-GO). Razprava se osredotoča predvsem na rokopisno zbirko danes manj znanih arij iz sredine 18. stoletja (I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 3–5). Izbor arij v obravnavani zbirki dobro odraža položaj Gorice in njenih prebivalcev v 18. stoletju. V mestu je bil velik del prebivalstva plemiškega rodu in pogovorni jezik je bil italijanščina. Mestna aristokracija je politično in kulturno dejansko živela med Italijo in habsburškimi vladarji na Dunaju. Mnogi so imeli različne upravne funkcije tudi v drugih habsburških središčih, zlasti v Gradcu. Arije v zbirki I-GOp, Misc. Mus. 3–5 bi lahko na papirju beneškega izvora prepisal tudi pisar iz dunajskih ali bližnjih krogov, kar bi pojasnilo prisotnost repertoarja, znanega iz predstav potujočih impresarijev (predvsem bratov Min- gotti) in nekaterih drugih lokalnih mecenov. Neapeljski skladatelji, zlasti Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, so bili izjemno priljubljeni, a prav tako tudi v avstrijskih deželah delujoči drugi skladatelji, kot so Georg Christoph Wagenseil, Paolo Scalabrini in Andrea Bernasconi. Obravnavane arije so ohranjene v obliki, primerni za zasebno rabo in so večinoma na- pisane ali prirejene za sopranski glas. Verjetno so bile namenjene plemiškim amaterskim glasbenicam, ki so bile vse že zaradi svojega statusa deležne dobre glasbene izobrazbe, DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 145 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03 146 predvsem v igranju na razna glasbila s tipkami in petju. Številne arije so zelo virtuozne, kar prav tako kaže na pričakovane glasbene veščine morebitnih uporabnic. Avtorji glasbe so skladatelji, ki so bili takrat na vrhu lestvic priljubljenosti. Note so bile prepisane sredi 40. let 18. stoletja, najverjetneje iz sekundarnih virov, ki so krožili v krogih impresarijev (ki so takrat uprizarjali t. i. operne lepljenke na Dunaju in v Gradcu ter tudi v zasebnih reziden- cah nekaterih mogočnih glasbenih mecenov na Češkem in Moravskem), pevcev ali tudi zasebnih zbiralcev. Vsak od njih bi lahko bil tihi avtor vsebine obravnavane zbirke. Zbirka je povečini delo enega samega kopista, kar lahko pomeni, da je šlo za posebno na- ročilo in so bile posamezne arije izbrane glede na želje in okus naročnika oziroma upo- rabnika. Sklepamo lahko, da je najverjetneje šlo za člana družine Coronini. Morebiti je bil to eden od staršev ali kak drug sorodnik Francesca Coroninija, čigar ime se pojavlja na nekaterih sorodnih partiturah v istem arhivskem fondu v Gorici. DMD XXI_2 Revija V16.indd 146 27. 02. 2026 15:49:03