Alessandro Scarlatti

Alessandro Scarlatti (b. 1660–d. 1725) was one of the most celebrated composers of his time, probably the most important opera composer in Europe around 1700. He was called “the Orpheus of our times,” and musicians such as Handel, Hasse, and Quantz traveled especially to meet him. Yet, in the early 21st century, Scarlatti is one of the lesser-performed Baroque composers, and a considerable part of his immense production is still not well known. The renown of the “Palermitano,” as he was always called after his place of birth, started before he was twenty, in Rome with his first operas, thanks to the favor of Queen Christina of Sweden. Later he was to establish relationships with important patrons—such as Ferdinando de’Medici, James III Stuart (the “Old Pretender”), and Queen Casimira of Poland; cardinals such as Pietro Ottoboni; and the Spanish viceroys of Naples—who were all in turn responsible for stages in his international career. The sign of Scarlatti’s reputation among upper society was his acceptance into the Academy of the Arcadia. He was one of only three musicians of his time admitted to this Academy, along with Corelli and Bernardo Pasquini. Whilst his operas were produced in many important theaters in Italy and abroad, he was nevertheless continuously under pressure for money, as he had a large family. He had ten children, five of whom were born in Naples, including his celebrated son Domenico. He wrote no fewer than 60 dramatic works and more than 600 chamber cantatas. The favor granted to the cantatas—a genre much in fashion and in which he was considered the most prolific of Baroque composers—depended again on his need for financial support, assured to him by a large number of music lovers. The rest of his musical compositions, even if fewer in quantity, are not less important, including oratorios, liturgical music, and a few instrumental pieces. Scarlatti could also be credited with the beginnings of the international circulation of a repertoire from Naples. For that reason, local historiography from the end of 19th century claimed Scarlatti to be the creator of the “Neapolitan School,” a concept later contested by musicologists. Although he spent most of his life in Naples, his personality can be never recognized as “pure Neapolitan”; nonetheless, he greatly influenced the generations of Neapolitan composers that followed, including Durante, Leo, Vinci, Jommelli, and others.

Female Arthurians in Scandinavia: Eufemia, Christina and the Modern Female Scholar

This article traces the line between the medieval female reader of Arthurian romance in Scandinavia and the female scholar of today. It draws attention to a number of female patrons and readers of Arthuriana in the Middle Ages, as well as to Queen Christina of Sweden in the seventeenth century. It also discusses the contribution of Scandinavian women to the scholarly field of Arthurian literary study.

Joseph Eckhel (1737–1798) and the coin collection of Queen Christina of Sweden in Rome

On the basis of published and unpublished sources, this paper discusses the influence that the visit made by the Austrian numismatist Joseph Eckhel (1737–1798) to Rome in 1772–3 had on the late eighteenth-century arrangement of the coin collection assembled by Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689), then in possession of the Odescalchi family. Furthermore, the author tries to assess the impact of this collection on the work of Eckhel, a key figure in numismatic scholarship.

The Early Dutch Reception of Cartesianism

Descartes spent the final two decades of his life in the Dutch Republic, where he turned into a publishing author and where he soon gathered a considerable following, in particular among academics. Of course, his views also met with opposition and were censured both at Leiden and at Utrecht universities. One motive for him joining the court of the Queen Christina of Sweden in 1649 may well have been his bitterness over the early Dutch reception of his views, and exasperation with the quarrels his philosophy had provoked. However, Descartes may well have underestimated the impact his writings had on Dutch scientists and philosophers ready to abandon Peripateticism.

Queen Christina’s heroic virtue and its religious implications

Heroic virtue is a recurrent theme in poems and panegyrics written for Queen Christina of Sweden, both before and after her abdication. This article focus on the use of heroic virtue in some poems and academic discourses dedicated to Christina, both before and after her conversion to Catholicism, taking a particular interest in its religious implications. The claim for heroicity stands as a political argument during the queen’s time in Sweden and as a programmatic position for her academy in Rome, Accademia Reale, both in its philosophical and poetical activity.