“Ce ne sont plus pour moi des divertissements qui me conviennent”. La musica nella vita romana di Maria Casimira, nuove scoperte

Abstract

Maria Casimira Sobieska arrived in Rome in 1699 after a journey lasting about six months. She resided in the Holy City for 15 years. The Queen loved to write letters and every week she sent many of them to her beloved children, acquaintances, friends and administrators of her possessions in Poland. From my perspective the most interesting letters were those written to her eldest son Jakub Ludwik Sobieski. In them she described the Roman feste, sacred and secular entertainments with music, the Roman opera theatres both private (as Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni’s or prince Francesco Maria Ruspoli’s) and public (as Teatro Capranica). She concentrated more on the issues of music and opera during the carnivals that were celebrated in Rome with great splendor and a dose of madness. The letters I discuss are preserved in the National Historical Archive of Minsk (Belarus), at the Sobieski Archive Fund as Fond 694, opus 1. It is a really huge collection containing thousands of documents related to Sobieski family. In the paper I do not discuss Maria Casimira Sobieska’s patronage what I did elsewhere. My main goal is to introduce her private thoughts and opinions previously unknown concerning such issues as her attitude to music, the function of her private opera theatre, the first meeting with members of the Roman Academy of Arcadia, her grand-daughter’s ability to dance and more.