Antonio Cesti – opera composer

Singer and organist wrote operas and church music

Antonio Cesti was hailed as the finest
musician of his generation

Composer Pietro Marc’Antonio Cesti was baptised on this day in 1623 in Arezzo in Tuscany. It was also probably the date of his birth.

One of the leading composers of the 17th century, Cesti is said to have written about 100 operas, although only 15 are known of today.

He joined the order of Friars Minor, or Franciscans, a Catholic religious group founded by St Francis of Assisi in 1637.

Cesti studied first in Rome and then moved to Venice, where his first known opera, Orontea, was produced in 1649.

In 1652 he became chapel master to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria at Innsbruck and from 1669 he was vice chapel master to the imperial court in Vienna.

Throughout the 17th century his operas were widely performed in Italy. His most famous operas, Il pomo d’oro, Dori, and Orontea, have survived to this day.

An illustration of the stage set, meant to represent the
underworld, for a production of Il pomo d'oro in Vienna

Il pomo d’oro was a lavish production, written for the wedding of Emperor Leopold I in 1666 in Vienna.

An important manuscript collection of 18 secular and three sacred cantatas by Cesti are preserved in Oxford.

His cantatas and religious works show Roman influences, whereas his operas demonstrate the influence of the Venetian school and foreshadow the operatic developments that were to come in the 18th century.

Cesti was also an acclaimed tenor and an organist and has been described as the most celebrated Italian musician of his generation. He died in Venice in 1669.

The Basilica of San Francesco
in Arezzo

Travel tip:

Arezzo, where Cesti was born, is an interesting old town in eastern Tuscany. The 13th century Basilica of San Francesco in the centre of the town is famous for containing Piero della Francesco’s cycle of frescoes, The Legend of the True Cross, painted between 1452 and 1466.

The Basilica of St Mark in Venice

Travel tip:

One of the focal points for music in Venice during the 17th century was St Mark’s Basilica in the square of the same name. St Mark’s is the cathedral church of Venice and one of the best examples of Italo-Byzantine architecture in existence. Because of its opulent design and gold ground mosaics it became a symbol of Venetian wealth and power and has been nicknamed Chiesa d’Oro (Church of Gold).

More reading:

How the castrato Farinelli became music's first superstar

The oldest opera still being performed

The 17th century musician who invented the piano

Also on this day:

1953: The birth of Felice Casson, the magistrate who uncovered NATO's top-secret Operation Gladio

2002: The death of crime novelist Franco Lucentini


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Paolo Sarpi – writer and statesman

Patriotic Venetian who the Pope wanted dead

Paolo Sarpi was an outspoken critic of
the Catholic Church

Historian, scientist, writer and statesman Paolo Sarpi died on this day in 1623 in Venice.

He had survived an assassination attack 16 years before and was living in seclusion, still preparing state papers on behalf of Venice, writing, and carrying out scientific studies.

The day before his death he had dictated three replies to questions about state affairs of the Venetian Republic.

He had been born Pietro Sarpi in 1552 in Venice. His father died while he was still a child and he was educated by his uncle, who was a school teacher, and then by a monk in the Augustinian Servite order.

He entered the Servite order himself at the age of 13, assuming the name of Fra Paolo. After going into a monastery in Mantua, he was invited to be court theologian to Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga.

He then went to Milan, where he was an adviser to Charles Borromeo, the archbishop of Milan, before being transferred back to Venice to be professor of philosophy at the Servite convent.

At the age of 27, Sarpi was sent to Rome, where he interacted with three successive popes. He then returned to Venice, where he spent 17 years studying. His writings were highly critical of the Catholic Church.

Pope Paul V, who plotted to have
Sarpi killed

Sarpi was a defender of the liberties of Republican Venice and a proponent of the separation of the church and state.

After Paul V was made pope, Venice adopted measures to restrict papal prerogative, but Paul V excommunicated the Venetians. Sarpi entered the argument and set out principles, which struck radically at papal intervention in secular matters. A compromise was finally arranged between the Pope and Venice through Henry IV of France

Afterwards, however, Sarpi became the target of an assassination attempt instigated by the Pope. In 1607, an unfrocked friar assisted by two other people agreed to kill Sarpi for the sum of 8,000 crowns, but the plot was discovered and they were arrested and imprisoned after crossing into Venetian territory.

The following month Sarpi was attacked and left for dead with 15 stiletto thrusts. His attackers were welcomed back into papal territory but the pope’s enthusiasm for them cooled after he discovered Sarpi had survived his injuries.

His would-be assassins settled in Rome and were granted a pension by the viceroy of Naples.

Plots continued to be formed against Sarpi and he occasionally occasionally spoke of taking refuge in England.

But he stayed in Venice and served the state until the end. His last words are said to have been: ‘Esto perpetua,’ or ‘May she endure forever.’

These words were later adopted as the state motto of American state of Idaho and appear on the back of the 2007 Idaho quarter.

The statue of Parlo Sarpi in Campo
Santa Fosca in Cannaregio in Venice

Travel tip:

A bronze statue of Paolo Sarpi stands on a monument to him in Campo Santa Fosca in the Cannaregio district of Venice near Strada Nova. It is close to the place where he was stabbed by the Pope’s would-be assassins.

Travel tip:

Liceo Classico Paolo Sarpi, established in 1803, is a public high school in Bergamo’s Città Alta, which is ranked highly nationally because of the teaching methods and the subjects studied. Students shared their experience in a 2012 television documentary film, Gli anni e I giorni.

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