Abbatini, Antonio Maria(bCitt di Castello,26 Jan 1595;dCitt di Castello,? after 15 March 1679).Italiancomposerandteacher. He travelled to Rome with his brother Guidobaldo, an artist, in 1623 and 1625 (Andrae, 1719), and was employed at S Giovanni in Laterano from January 1627 to May 1629. According to his verse autobiography (inI-Rvat) he served there seven years and some months, or from 1622, but neither this nor his statement that he held earlier positions in Citt di Castello and at the Ges in Rome have been confirmed. He subsequently served asmaestro di cappellaat the cathedrals of Citt di Castello (June 1629 to May 1632, December 1635 to November 1640 and May 1677 to March 1679) and Orvieto (December 1632 to 1635). In Rome his principal tenures were at S Maria Maggiore, where he trained boy sopranos (November 1640 to January 1646, September 1649 to January 1657 and March 1672 to June 1677), and at S Luigi dei Francesi (November 1657 to March 1667). He directed music briefly at S Lorenzo in Damaso (May to October 1649) and at S Maria di Loreto (February to November 1657). He was employed briefly from March to October 1667 at the Santa Casa in Loreto before being recalled to Rome to serve asbussolante extra murosto Pope Clement IX (Giulio Rospigliosi), who had earlier been his prefect of music at S Maria Maggiore. He appears to have retained this office until July 1676, when Clement X died (Andrae, 63).Apart from his dramatic cantataIl pianto di Rodomonte, published in 1633 by Pietro Antonio Ubaldoni (a tenor at Orvieto who had sung under him as a boy in S Giovanni in Laterano), Abbatini's printed music was exclusively sacred. Of the ten published volumes he reports in his autobiography (c1667), three volumes ofsacre canzoni(apparently identified as motets by his contemporaries) are lost, as also is his revision of Palestrina's settings of the hymns of the Roman breviary, whose Latin had been newly revised by Urban VIII. (Abbatini's revisions were rejected by the Cappella Sistina, and it is unclear who was responsible for the edition of the hymns published in Antwerp in 1644.) Eight motets appeared in various anthologies between 1643 and 1656, but Abbatini's fame as a composer of sacred music was secured when Athanasius Kircher's monumentalMusurgia universalis(Rome, 1650) cited his works as a model of the stylus ecclesiasticus & motecticus, illustrated by his five-partJesu dulcis memoriafrom the fourth book ofSacre canzoni. Clear textures, firm diatonic harmonies, and melodic lines more declamatory than melismatic conform to Tridentine standards. With their lively sense of phrasing, their division into sections by frequent metrical changes and their suave passages in 3rds and 6ths, however, the few-voice compositions, especially, can be heard as precursors of Corelli's generation.Abbatini probably considered his second most important contribution to be that as a teacher and scholar. Contracts for the musical instruction and boarding ofputtiexist from the 1640s in conjunction with his first employment at S Maria Maggiore. He counted some five score followers and more, principally castratos. Domenico dal Pane became the most notable among them, as an operatic singer, member of the Sistine and Viennese Imperial chapels, and later as amaestro di cappellain his own right. From 1658 to 1676 Abbatini was a stalwart of the Roman Congregazione di S Cecilia, serving as one of its guardians in 16623, 1666 and 1669. He held public academies at his own house in the 1660s at which Italian music of the late 16th century, including unaccompanied madrigals by Marenzio and Monteverdi, were performed. 15 of his own academic discourses (dated 16638) survive, dealing in the main with music theory and contrapuntal technique. His autobiographical sketch clearly resents the reduced status of the composer asmusicoin comparison with the esteem accorded the best singers of the day.Abbatini had no private patrons and he wrote little chamber music, but in Rome he moved within the spheres of the Barberini and their protg Giulio Rospigliosi.Il pianto di Rodomontewas composed for the Accademia degli Assorditi, originally of Urbino, to a text by a member of the academy. Berardi reports that madrigals by him were sung at his academy in the 1660s. The few cantatas attributed to him have not been dated, but appear in sources from after about 1650 and may also have served the same purpose.It was probably Abbatini's connection with Giulio Rospigliosi at S Maria Maggiore that engendered his collaboration with Marco Marazzoli on the operaDal male il bene, given for the young Prince Maffeo Barberini and his new wife during Carnival 1654. Abbatini alone composed the music for Rospigliosi'sLa comica del cielo, an opera about the penitential conversion of a Spanish actress and based, likeDal male il bene, on a Spanish play. It was staged in Rome in 1668 under Rospigliosi's papacy, though it may have been written and partly composed earlier. Both operas portray contemporary secular characters including humorous subordinates who have lively dialogue and arias. The ensembles of soloists that conclude Acts 1 and 3 ofDal male il bene(Marazzoli wrote Act 2 and the beginning of Act 3) are among the earliest known examples of the ensemble finale. Both operas also offered a variety of duets and presented arias in the new longer refrain forms or in cantata-like scenes. Despite the origins of both librettos, little of their music attempts to sound Spanish. The musical challenge, rather, was to set the long stretches of recitative dialogue demanded by the involved plots. Abbatini's recitative broadened the rate of harmonic change and provided forward momentum with a firm sense of chord progression.Somewhat different was Abbatini's score forIone, intended for the celebrations of the marriage of Emperor Leopold I to Margareta Theresia of Spain. Based on the Greek story of Io, seduced by Jupiter, and a vengeful Juno, its 12 solo roles call for more arias, with more florid passages, and greater use of treble instruments to accompany them. Its choral finales represent a return to the style of earlier spectacles. The librettist is unknown, and no performance has been documented. Abbatini did not mention any of his theatrical scores in recounting his career, yet it is for his operas that he has been known in modern times.WORKSprinted works published in Rome unless otherwise statedsacredMissa, 16vv (1627)

Il terzo libro di sacre canzoni, 26vv, op.5 (Orvieto, 1634)

Il quinto libro di sacre canzoni, 25vv, op.9 (1638); 2 ed. in Ciliberti, 4 ed. in Andrae

Il sesto libro di sacre canzoni, 25vv, op.10 (1653); 2 ed. in Ciliberti, 3 ed. in Andrae

[2] Antifone a 12 bassi e 12 tenori cantate in S Maria sopra Minerva l'anno 1661 (1677)

Motets in 16431, 16432, 16452, 16492, 16501,I-Bc,Rc,Rsc; 1 ed. in Ciliberti

Jesu dulcis memoria, motet, 5vv, ed. in Kircher [from lost 4th book of sacre canzoni]

Lost: Requiem, 1672, cited in Giazotto; Ky, Gl, 16vv, cited in Andrae; ants, 12 S, 12 A, cited in Baini

secularIl pianto di Rodomonte (dramatic cantata), 4vv, bc (Orvieto, 1633/R)

Dal male il bene (dramma musicale, 3, Giacomo and Giulio Rospigliosi, after A. Sigler de Huerta:No ay bien sin ageno dao), Rome, Palazzo Barberini alle Quattro Fontane, 12 Feb 1654,D-Ms(Act 1),IBborromeo,I-Bc,Rsc(Acts 2 and 3),Rvat(2 copies, 1 partly autograph); collab. M. Marazzoli

Ione (dramma musicale, 3), unperf.,A-Wn[dated Rome, 1666]

La comica del cielo (dramma musicale, 3, Giulio Rospigliosi, after L. Vlez de Guevara, A. Coelho and F. de Roxas:La Baltasara), Rome, Palazzo Rospigliosi a S Lorenzo in Lucina, 1 Feb 1668,I-Rvat(partly autograph)

Cantatas (all with bc): Ahi, di man de la ragione, 1v,MOe; Amante dubbioso, 1v,MOe; Passati contenti, 1v,F-Pn; Vieni amante, 2vv,I-Fc; Vo cercando la fortuna, 1v,MOe; Voli augello al vento, 1v,Nc, ed. in Andrae

Madrigals, lost, cited in Berardi

WRITINGS[15] Discorsi, o Lezioni accademiche (MS,16638,I-Bc), ed. in CilibertiBIBLIOGRAPHYDBIES(N. Pirrotta)FtisBLaMusicaDPitoniNA.Berardi:Ragionamenti musicali(Bologna,1681), 135A.Ademollo:I teatri di Roma nel secolo decimosettimo(Rome,1888/R), 98ffV.Raeli:Da Vincenzo Ugolini ad Orazio Benevoli nella cappella della Basilica liberiana (160346)(Rome,1920)G.Tebaldini:L'archivio musicale della Cappella lauretana(Loreto,1921)F.Coradini:Antonio Maria Abbatini e Lorenzo Abbatini: notizie biografiche(Arezzo,1922)R.Casimiri:Disciplina musicae e mastri di capella dopo il Concilio di Trento nei maggiori istituti ecclesiastici di Roma: Seminario romano Collegio germanico Collegio inglese (sec. XVIXVII),NA, xv (1938), 567M.Vezzosi:La commedia musicale romana nel Teatro di Palazzo Barberini nel secolo XVII(diss., U. of Rome,1940)N.Pirrotta:Cesti e Abbatini: opera,Santa Cecilia, ii/3 (1953), 314W.C.Holmes:ComedyOperaComic Opera,AnMc, no.5 (1968), 92103I.Kffel:Die Libretti G. Rospigliosis: ein Kapitel frhbarocken Operngeschichte in Rom(diss., U. of Vienna,1968)R.Giazotto:Quattro secoli di storia dell'Accademia nazionale de Santa Cecilia(Rome,1970)M.Murata:Il carnevale a Roma nel secolo XVII,RIM, xii (1977), 8399M.Murata:Operas for the Papal Court, 16311668(Ann Arbor,1981)L.Bianconi:Il Seicento(Turin,1982; Eng. trans.,1987, asMusic in the Seventeenth Century)J.Burke:Musicians of S Maria Maggiore, Rome, 16001700(Venice,1984)J.Lionnet:La musique Saint-Louis des Franais de Rome au XVIIe sicle, NA, new ser., iii, suppl. (1985)K.Andrae:Ein rmischer Kapellmeister im 17. Jahrhundert: Antonio Maria Abbatini (ca. 16001679): Studien zu Leben und Werk(Herzberg,1986)G.Ciliberti:Antonio Maria Abbatini e la musica del suo tempo (15951679): documenti per una ricostruzione bio-bibliografica(Perugia,1986)B.Brumana:Il Tasso e l'opera nel Seicento: una Gerusalemme interrompue nella Comica del cielo di Rospigliosi-Abbatini,Tasso, la musica, i musicisti, ed. M.A. Balsano and T. Walker (Florence,1988), 13764MARGARET MURATA