Bibliography and sources used to create ItalianOpera

A bibliography, not a painted backdrop

ItalianOpera does not arise from the hurried assembly of secondary entries, nor from a mechanical collection of dates and titles repeated from one website to another. Its construction instead relies on a broad, verifiable and stratified bibliography that includes encyclopedic dictionaries, specialist repertories, histories of music, theoretical treatises, digital archives and tools for locating sources.

This distinction is essential. An encyclopedic dictionary serves to orient research, establish coordinates and identify problems. A general history helps to read phenomena in their development. A catalogue such as RISM does not “explain” a composer, but indicates where the materials are physically located. A database such as RILM does not provide the truth, but allows the reconstruction of the state of research. Confusing these levels leads to careless popularization; distinguishing them makes serious work possible.

For this reason, the bibliography used for ItalianOpera is not merely a supporting apparatus but a true infrastructure of the site. Some sources function as indispensable starting points, others as instruments of verification, and others still as critical counterweights to historiographical traditions that are repeated too often and examined too rarely.

The major encyclopedias and basic repertories

The first core of the bibliography consists of the major encyclopedic works. Among these, the DEUMM – Dizionario Enciclopedico Universale della Musica e dei Musicisti, published by UTET and directed by Alberto Basso, represents for Italian musicology an almost obligatory starting point. The sections devoted to the Lexicon and to Biographies are particularly useful for constructing reliable entries, clarifying historical terminology and situating musicians within documented coordinates.

Alongside the DEUMM stands the Enciclopedia della Musica published by Einaudi and directed by Jean-Jacques Nattiez. Although international in scope, this work offers methodological and theoretical essays of considerable importance for reading the history of Italian music within a broader perspective, especially when dealing with questions of aesthetics, language and historiographical construction.

Another fundamental tool is the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani of Treccani. It is not exclusively musical, yet precisely for this reason it allows Italian composers to be restored within a wider cultural history, avoiding the corporative habit of a musicology that often speaks only to itself. The entries devoted to musicians, often written by leading specialists, are among the most detailed available.

For international comparison two major foreign repertories are indispensable. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians allows one to observe how Italian music is classified and interpreted within the international context and is therefore useful not only as a source but also as a litmus test for certain consolidated stereotypes. The MGG – Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, the German encyclopedic project, remains a resource of high level for philological precision, particularly concerning the Renaissance, the eighteenth century and the tradition of theoretical writing.

A necessary remark: no encyclopedia alone is sufficient. Great reference works are valuable, but they become dangerous when used as a supreme tribunal. They serve to orient and compare, not to replace the direct analysis of sources.

The great histories of Italian music

The second core consists of works that claim to “make” the history of music in Italy, but which require more than a few precautions. The reservations concern above all arbitrary periodizations, categories that often ignore Italian cultural history, personal aesthetic judgments presented as objective, approximate stylistic analyses and, not infrequently, a persistent habit of cultural deference to foreign models. A striking example is the Storia della musica published by the Società Italiana di Musicologia, which goes so far as to entitle The Age of Bach and Handel a volume devoted to Italian music: a revealing choice, since it assumes as its center what is not Italian, relegating Italy to a mere periphery of categories developed elsewhere.

Among these works, a central place is nevertheless occupied—though it is now somewhat dated—by the Storia dell'opera italiana published by EDT and edited by Lorenzo Bianconi and Giorgio Pestelli. Despite its limitations, it remains a reference work because of the richness of some of its contributions and for its attempt, not always successful, to connect musical phenomena with productive, theatrical and social structures.

Of a certain importance is also the series Storia della musica promoted by the Società Italiana di Musicologia, which nevertheless suffers from the limitations mentioned above. The volumes devoted to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries remain useful for following—despite a sometimes uncertain periodization—the evolution of musical language, compositional practices and the institutions in which Italian musicians were trained.

For a systematic framework, the Manuale di storia della musica by Elvidio Surian has also been used. It has the advantage of offering an orderly structure that is useful for organizing pages intended for a public not exclusively composed of specialists. This, however, on the condition that the proposed periodization is reconsidered, certain subjective and historically questionable judgments are removed, and the often insistent comparisons with the so-called “great masters”—almost always identified with composers from the German-speaking world—are reduced. As is predictable in a school manual, a genuinely critical and problem-oriented perspective is largely absent.

It is worth stating the matter clearly: large historical syntheses are indispensable, yet they tend at times to stabilize inherited narratives, especially when an old judgment turns into a scholastic reflex. For this reason, on this site they are used as points of comparison rather than as an unquestionable framework.

Opera, musical theatre and the history of melodrama

Since ItalianOpera devotes considerable space to the history of musical theatre, several specialized studies on opera have been adopted as stable references. Among these stands out Il teatro d’opera in Italia by Lorenzo Bianconi, itself somewhat dated, yet useful for approaching opera not only as a musical genre but also as a productive, social and theatrical system.

Also of some usefulness is L’opera italiana by Gilles de Van, which helps to read the evolution of forms, dramaturgical conventions and the relationships between music, action and vocality, though within the limits of a periodization that is sometimes applied in a rather schematic way. From this perspective, the operatic repertory is not treated as a simple succession of masterpieces but as a complex tradition marked by continuities, ruptures, revivals and revisions.

For pages devoted to operetta, musical comedy and hybrid genres, these studies are complemented by historical repertories, libretti, performance chronologies and archival materials. The history of opera, in fact, is poorly understood if reduced to a theory of “great composers”: one must also look at impresarios, theatres, singers, librettists, fashions and systems of circulation.

Music theory, notation and treatises

For the sections devoted to theory, notation, compositional systems and the history of counterpoint, the site relies on a specific bibliography that cannot be replaced by general manuals. Among the structural references stands the Storia della teoria musicale promoted by the Società Italiana di Musicologia, indispensable for situating in their historical development the treatises from Guido of Arezzo to the modern age.

Alongside this framework, several foundational treatises have been considered. The Istitutioni harmoniche by Gioseffo Zarlino represent a crucial stage in Italian reflection on the order of intervals, consonances and the theoretical structure of musical writing. The Prattica di musica by Ludovico Zacconi is essential for understanding the transition between Renaissance practice and seventeenth-century musical culture. Adriano Banchieri, in L’organo suonarino, illuminates important aspects of basso continuo, keyboard practice and accompaniment procedures. Stanislao Mattei, in his Pratica d’accompagnamento sopra bassi numerati, provides a valuable link between the Bolognese pedagogical tradition and the practices that shaped the living fabric of Italian musical training in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

For everything concerning partimenti, compositional schemata and historical pedagogy, two modern studies have received particular attention. The first is Giorgio Sanguinetti, The Art of Partimento, a work that nevertheless suffers from a rather superficial historical contextualization and at times reproduces uncritically certain traditional judgments about the Neapolitan school. The book also refers to a conference held in New York that allegedly “banned” the Neapolitan school, yet no documentary confirmation of such a claim could be found. More generally, the use of categories such as a supposed “age of Bach and Mozart” applied to the Italian context ultimately weakens the historical dimension of the argument.

More solid overall is the work of Robert Gjerdingen, Music in the Galant Style, though not without certain generalizations in its periodizations and reconstruction of the historical context. Even when operating within an international framework, these studies remain difficult to avoid for anyone wishing to discuss the role of the Neapolitan school and the functioning of schemata in the training of composers.

The comment is almost inevitable: much has been written about Italian music theory, but it has often been interpreted through foreign lenses. Returning to the treatises and to actual pedagogical practice helps reduce many misunderstandings that historiography has turned into habit.

Belcanto, madrigal, style and critical studies

A serious bibliography cannot stop at the major repertories and general syntheses. To give greater substance to its in-depth pages, ItalianOpera also makes use of critical studies capable of adding stylistic precision and interpretative depth. Among these, mention should be made of Breve storia della musica by Massimo Mila, which remains a classic of Italian music writing above all because of its wide circulation. It is, however, an inevitably limited work, since in a small number of pages it attempts to summarize an extremely vast subject. Its approach is therefore more journalistic than properly musicological, with a broad presence of subjective judgments, although it does display at times an original ability to connect musical facts to a personal aesthetic reading.

For the relationship between Italy and France in the nineteenth century, the work of Fabrizio Della Seta, Italia e Francia nell’Ottocento, is useful. It too is now dated, yet still important for contextualizing tensions, exchanges and historiographical contrasts between the two musical traditions. For vocality and performance style, Storia del belcanto by Rodolfo Celletti remains a useful resource.

Also enriching the overall picture are studies such as that by Andrea Carafa, La musica italiana del Settecento, especially where historiographical reflection must confront the prejudices that have opposed, often in a caricatural way, German symphonism to the Italian musical tradition.

Specialized biographical repertories and complementary tools

Alongside the major repertories, the work carried out on ItalianOpera also benefits from specialist tools that are less well known to the general public but extremely useful. Among these is the Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani. Secoli IX–XVI, edited by Milvia Bollati (Milan, Sylvestre Bonnard, 2004), useful for reconstructing the network of illuminators, scribes and workshops involved in the production of manuscripts.

In many cases, it is precisely these apparently secondary tools that make it possible to correct convenient but persistent errors. The history of music does not pass only through “great names”, but also through networks of scribes, teachers, libraries, pupils and collections. Anyone who neglects this infrastructure ends up telling an elegant but empty story, rather like building a magnificent theatre and forgetting to put inside the orchestra that actually plays.

Archives, national catalogues and digital libraries

A decisive part of the documentation used for the site comes from digital archives and national catalogues. Internet Culturale represents a tool of enormous importance for access to the digital collections of Italian libraries: libretti, printed editions, manuscripts, historical editions and iconographic materials are often directly consultable there.

The catalogue of the URFM – Ufficio Ricerca Fondi Musicali is essential for locating manuscripts and printed music preserved in Italy, while the Catalogo SBN, especially in its musical sections, remains indispensable for tracing editions, copies and collections distributed across the national territory.

Among the most useful resources for musical theatre is CORAGO, a project of the University of Bologna devoted to Italian melodrama. Its database of libretti, chronologies and productions is a tool of the highest value for anyone working on opera from a historical perspective. For the Italian cantata of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an important role is played by CLORI – Archivio della Cantata Italiana, valuable for broadening the perspective beyond the operatic repertory.

Among the digital places from which particularly significant materials derive, one should also mention the Archivio Storico Ricordi, decisive for nineteenth-century opera; the catalogue of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice, of great usefulness for the Venetian tradition; the Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica di Bologna, fundamental for the collection of Padre Martini; and the archive of the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella in Naples, which for the history of pedagogy, partimenti and Italian theory is almost an obligatory stop.

It must be said frankly: today anyone who speaks about sources without consulting these digital tools is doing crippled work. Perhaps elegant, perhaps pompous, but crippled all the same.

International databases: RISM, RILM and comparative tools

For locating primary sources and reconstructing international critical bibliography, two tools have been particularly important: RISM and RILM.

The RISM – Répertoire International des Sources Musicales is the international catalogue of musical sources. Its usefulness is concrete and immediate: it makes it possible to know where manuscripts, printed editions, libretti and treatises are preserved, and in many cases it also provides identifying elements of great value such as musical incipits. Whenever one wants to emerge from the fog of vague citations and understand where a source is actually located, RISM is often the first tool to consult.

The RILM – Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale serves a different purpose: it makes it possible to follow the critical literature produced in different languages and countries, identifying articles, books, reviews and dissertations. It does not replace the reading of texts, of course, but it helps reconstruct the state of research and to understand which themes have been addressed, neglected or distorted.

To these must be added international tools such as JSTOR and Project MUSE, useful for accessing scholarly literature, and IMSLP – Petrucci Music Library, valuable for the consultation and linking of public-domain scores. Here too, the rule is simple: a database does not think in place of the scholar, but it at least prevents him from searching blindfolded.

The books of Luca Bianchini and Anna Trombetta within the site’s bibliographical framework

Within the bibliographical work that supports ItalianOpera, the books of Anna Trombetta and Luca Bianchini also find their place, not as self-referential ornament, but as part of a research path that on several occasions has addressed historiographical knots neglected or stiffened by academic tradition.

Among the titles used or referred to in the general framework of the site are Goethe, Mozart e Mayr – Fratelli Illuminati, Arché, 2009, 448 pages, with a presentation by Alberto Basso; Mozart in Italia, Youcanprint, 2021, 504 pages; Mozart – La Costruzione di un Genio, Youcanprint, 2019, 146 pages; and the corresponding English editions Mozart – The Construction of a Genius, Youcanprint, 2022, 140 pages, Mozart in Italy, Youcanprint, 2025, 498 pages, and Goethe, Mozart, and Mayr – Illuminati Brothers, Youcanprint, 2025, 454 pages.

These volumes belong to a line of research aimed at rereading documents, biographical traditions, Mozart’s Italian itineraries and cultural relationships often treated in a conventional way. Their presence in the site’s bibliography therefore responds to a simple criterion: when one’s own research enters directly into dialogue with primary sources and historiography, it is right to declare it openly, not to hide it behind a false neutrality. Ostentatious neutrality, in historiography, is often only conformity in disguise.

Cited editions: essential data

Anna Trombetta, Luca Bianchini, Goethe, Mozart e Mayr – Fratelli Illuminati, Arché, 1 January 2009, 448 pp., ISBN 978-8872522301.

Anna Trombetta, Luca Bianchini, Mozart in Italia, Youcanprint, 8 November 2021, 504 pp., ISBN 979-1220363624.

Anna Trombetta, Luca Bianchini, Mozart – La Costruzione di un Genio, Youcanprint, 30 July 2019, 146 pp., ISBN 978-8831632010.

Anna Trombetta, Luca Bianchini, Mozart – The Construction of a Genius, Youcanprint, 21 November 2022, 140 pp., ISBN 979-1221428230.

Anna Trombetta, Luca Bianchini, Mozart in Italy, Youcanprint, 22 January 2025, 498 pp., ISBN 979-1222782720.

Anna Trombetta, Luca Bianchini, Goethe, Mozart, and Mayr – Illuminati Brothers, Youcanprint, 17 March 2025, 454 pp., ISBN 979-1222782768.

Method of work and use of sources on the site

The sources employed for ItalianOpera are not all used in the same way. Some works function as repertories of orientation, others as instruments of verification, and still others as a basis for critical discussion. Whenever possible, the site accompanies secondary bibliography with references to digitized primary sources, catalogues or documents preserved in consultable archives.

The aim is not to impress the reader with a mass of titles, but to build pages that rest on a verifiable foundation. A bibliography that is too short is suspect; one that is too ostentatiously displayed often is as well. The difficult thing, and also the only useful one, is to ensure that every source has a real function.

ItalianOpera moves precisely in this direction: not to replace research with summary, not to mistake citation for proof, not to treat historiography like a catechism. Italian music deserves better, and frankly so does the reader.