SCARLATTI
— A family of musicians who came to Rome from Sicily (though of probable Tuscan origin) and produced no fewer than nine musicians; however, the works of only four of them have been preserved.
The first is ALESSANDRO, born in Palermo on 6 May 1660, died in Naples on 22 October 1725. Having moved to Rome with his parents, he established himself there with two theatrical works that made him famous and earned him the protection of Queen Christina of Sweden. He then turned to composing sacred music, including the *Messa Clementina* and six other masses preserved in the holdings of the Cappella Giulia at the Vatican Library: a festive Mass for four voices with organ; a five-voice Mass, *Veni sponsa Christi*; an eight-voice Mass (without *Benedictus*); another eight-voice Mass; a pastoral Mass for four voices in F major; an eight-voice pastoral Mass with soloists in D major; and the motet *Caro mea* for three voices, signed and dated 31 December 1707, possibly autograph. After unsuccessful attempts to establish himself in Venice and Urbino, he returned in 1708 to Naples, where he remained—except for a brief stay in Rome—until his death.
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DOMENICO, son of Alessandro, born in Naples on 26 October 1685, died in Madrid on 23 July 1757. At the age of sixteen he was already organist and composer to the royal chapel, and soon afterward began—under his father’s guidance—the career of harpsichord virtuoso at the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In Venice he met Handel, with whom he formed a deep friendship, and in 1708 he went to Rome, where—in the Palazzo of Cardinal Ottoboni—the famous contest took place, won by Handel on the organ and by S. on the harpsichord. In 1715 he became maestro of the Cappella Giulia in St Peter’s and thereafter devoted himself to sacred music, of which two *Miserere* settings for four voices survive in the archives of the Cappella: one in G minor (autograph) and the other in E minor. In August 1719 he moved to Portugal, where he was entrusted with directing the royal chapel in Lisbon and with the musical education of Princess Barbara, to whom he dedicated a collection of harpsichord sonatas.
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SCARLETTI — SCENOGRAPHY
He was trained in art by his father Sigismondo, nicknamed Mondino, a mediocre painter who had been a pupil in Venice of Paolo Veronese. Between 1570 and 1576 he completed his apprenticeship in Bologna, in contact with the Carracci, and in Venice, studying the works of Veronese and the Bassanos.
These influences gave S. a pleasing palette and a bold, confident technique. In keeping with his eclecticism, he often reveals a subjective lyrical nature expressed through fluid forms, generous impastos, and beautiful silvery, grey, violet, and crimson tones, as well as tender, fragrant landscape backgrounds. Above all, his realistic taste—absorbed from the Bassanos—is evident in the insertion of domestic-life episodes or details into his noble compositions. Among the numerous works preserved in Ferrara, those in the municipal picture gallery stand out: *SS. Francis and Lawrence*, *The Annunciation*, and several portraits; in the church of S. Paolo, *Pentecost*, *The Birth of the Baptist*, and the large apse fresco of *The Rapture of Elijah*; in the church of the Cappuccine, two gentle *Madonnas with Saints*; in S. Giovanni, the dramatic *Pietà* and *Beheading of the Baptist*; and in S. Cristoforo, near the Certosa, the lively scene of *The Finding of the Body of St Bruno*. Notable in the Estense Gallery in Modena are the early *Birth of the Virgin*, *Adoration of the Child* (with a host of angelic musicians), and seven oval friezes depicting mythological subjects, which come from a ceiling in Ferrara’s Palazzo dei Diamanti. S. is also well represented in Roman collections, especially the Borghese Gallery, where one may admire, among other works, a delicate *Holy Family*, *Diana and Endymion*, and *Venus at her Bath*. Other notable paintings are in Florence (e.g., *Adoration of the Magi* in the Cioni collection), Dresden, Budapest, Darmstadt, Hanover, London, Leningrad, the United States, etc.
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