Talk:Marc'Antonio Pasqualini

Barberini

Moved from User talk:Jacobkcarpenter and User talk:Stalwart111 -

I've reverted your edit to the above article. That is not a suggestion that the edit or the assertion are wrong but things like that should be decided by consensus with a discussion on the talk page. The content in question is sourced to a reliable academic publication so you would need to demonstrate why it is wrong or otherwise unreliable beyond your own opinion. If you have a different source that substantiates why that one should be disregarded then you should put it up for discussion. Cheers, St★lwart¹¹¹ 23:03, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I have never been skilled with Wikipedia's controls to cite and such; it has caused several arguments between other users and me. The source is an email I received from Doctor Murata last year: http://i62.tinypic.com/11lj02d.png I addressed Marc'Antonio Pasqualini and his patron as lovers myself from Doctor Freitas' article; however, as Doctor Murata has written the most about the particular castrato, I look to her as the mainstay authority.

Doctor Freitas has shown poor scholarship in his textbook about the infamous castrato Atto Melani as well. The three Roman singers highlighted in the 1712 treatise Eunuchism Displayed are the aforementioned mezzo-soprano Pasqualini, mezzo-soprano Paolo "Paoluccio" Cipriani, and the soprano(?) Girolamo [Jeronimo] "Momo" Zampetti who prematurely left his singing career. I have not personally seen music written for Melani when he was an alleged soprano, so I cannot speculate his proper voice type.

Jacobkcarpenter (talk) 23:51, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, an email like that could never be considered a reliable source by our standards. Your personal research and subsequent conclusions, likewise, aren't reliable sources. To counter scholarly opinion we really need equally reliable scholarly opinion. Even then, the two sources would likely still be provided as opposing views on the subject, rather than one being used as justification for deleting the other. Your personal opinion of Freitas' scholarship (like mine) doesn't carry much weight. If Murata publishes her view in a scholarly manner then it's a different story. St★lwart¹¹¹ 01:11, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I assume that Doctor Murata has. indeed, published documented articles concerning Pasqualini's life. Ones such as Further Remarks on Pasqualini and the Music of MAP (1979) are cited in a 2009 dissertation on the Counter-Reformation melodrammi sacri by Doctor Virginia Lamothe at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. The opposing opinion against Doctor Freitas's here has been included by me in an email I sent earlier tonight. Doctor Murata has been on a straitening sojourn in Rome since the middle of September, so when and if she will respond is open-ended.

Still, I do feel the archived one I presented holds value; the woman was answering many inquiries I had about the Barberini operas, as well as the culture of sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe. There are other operas akin that are fully preserved and could resurrected, Virgilio Mazzocchi's Saint Eustace (1643) among; the University of Turin and the Doria-Pamphili-Landi Archive administrator never returned questions concerning that and Mario Savioni's Saint Agnes (1651). Jacobkcarpenter (talk) 02:24, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

You'll find that email is not readily accepted as a reliable source here; it's not published professionally with editorial oversight or pee review because it is personal correspondence. The work you mention may indeed provide some answers but we would need access to a copy (to verify the claims made) and it would need to deal with the subject (as Freitas' does) with the concept/issue in detail, such that we can use it as a source for a proper account of Murata's view. It also wouldn't be sufficient for you to publish an email with your synopsis and her agreement, in general terms, with the assertions made. That, too, would suffer the same issues with regard to reliability. You'll see from my user page and contributions history that I have spent a significant amount of time editing articles about 17th century Italian culture and history, especially the Barberini. There are a great many things in the subject area that we (myself and editing colleagues) "know" but we cannot include for lack of reliable sources. I'd love to have additional academic sources that, a) provide a greater insight into related topics, and; b) provide us with additional sources that we can cite to (finally) verify particular things.

From a purely logical perspective, there is extensive evidence to suggest Antonio Barberini maintained homosexual relationships, to the point of drawing attention from foreign dignitaries who believed him too indiscreet. There is also evidence that Barberini was a patron of Pasqualini. There is cultural precedent for a patronage relationship that extended into the personal, beyond the platonic. And Freitas is not the only academic to have drawn the conclusion (though, arguably, others like Rietbergen may have come to the same conclusion with his assistance). Freitas' is not a "bolt out of the blue" view; it is based on both academic analysis and logical inference-drawing. That said, an opposing view that the logic is perhaps faulty should not be rejected out of hand. I'm going to move this discussion to Talk:Marc'Antonio Pasqualini to allow others to contribute. Feel free to continue there. St★lwart¹¹¹ 03:02, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

It would depend on where Doctor Murata has published findings on Pasqualini's life. Two articles used were graciously provided in regards to my own interest concerning the mezzo-soprano. Much material is found primarily in libraries about the United States and Europe. Others are in archives, open and private, which can only be accessed through starkly protective conditions. Mario Savioni's sacred opera La Santa Agnese (Saint Agnes) (1651, Rome)is an example. It was Murata who directed me to join the Early Music Society of America in order to attain entrance to Grove Music Online and the Naxos Music Library. Pasqualini's bibliography there is well sourced, albeit offline circumstances prevent my father aiding the interlibrary loaning process. To copy from the entry without properly citing it would place me in frightening trouble.

I cannot make comments towards Cardinal Antonio Barberini's character, public and private, myself. I am aware that he was the patron of both Pasqualini and Loreto Vittori; Don Taddeo Barberini had Giuseppe "Giuseppino" Bianchi; Cardinal Francesco Barberini had Angelo "Angeluccio" Ferrotti and Paolo "Paoluccio" Cipriani. Girolamo "Momo" Zampetti was under the last's patronage for a time, but Murata informed me that the castrato left Rome and ceased singing. Doctor Frederick Hammond is apparently the musicologist who has written the most about Zampetti's life. Doctor Silke Leopold did similarly with Ferrotti. I am a sopranist offline, so Ferrotti's name has given me a vocalist I can follow in terms of repertoire; I have scant interest in training to imitate eighteenth century castrati like Carlo "Farinelli" Broschi or Gaetano "Caffarelli" Maiorano. They are rather overdone on a personal standpoint.

The lacking of definitive proofs is surely lamentable regarding the Barberini commissions, as it is with many other records that are lost and/or are privately owned. I encounter that in genealogy myself, a pastime taken on since I was a small child. One wishes to uncover certain items quested for, yet they are left disappointed in the end. I think this true of the anonymously composed I Santi Didimo e Teodora (Saints Didymus and Theodora) (1635-1636, Rome) and its precedents like Marco da Gagliano's La Regina Sant'Orsola (Queen Saint Ursula) (1624-1625, Florence) and La Giuditta (Judith) (1626, Florence). There are many librettos Google has been uploading which are worth more proper studying, yet are glossed over by the writers of the composers' respective entries in aforementioned Grove. The University of Modena has the sole copy of a script about Mary Magdalene, a dramma musicale titled La Penintente (The Penintent) (1656) by a Niccolo Margaritoni. Its score is also gone, but never had I seen an opera regarding her; oratorios usually dealt with her figure.

Indeed, I have been aware of cases where patrons showed romantic and/or sexual feelings towards their musicians. Atto Melani is forefront from Freitas' book, yet another who was denied marriage to a woman became exceptionally close to their patron in similar light. Even the boy player Edward Kynaston from late seventeenth century England was accused of being possibly bisexual. Doctor Murata does not have her notes on hand in what she has told me; they are back in her native California. I am unable to complete my college education for reasons of disabling health problems, so I essay to document what I can, speculate where I must when evidence is not present, et cetera. The sacred opera genre has become my favored one above the secular; I desire to learn all I can about such pieces and the lives and events surrounding their individual backgrounds. Jacobkcarpenter (talk) 04:05, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I think the focus, then, should be on gaining access to some of those sources. I would also highlight that while some academic sources focused on musicology might deal with sexuality in passing, sources like Freitas deal with it in focus and in detail. It's less likely that a conclusion dealt with in detail in an academic work would be dismissed on the basis of an opinion in passing in a broader work about something else entirely. Continue your work on gaining access to those sources. As you touch on, Wikipedia has very strict rules with regard to copyright - something else to be conscious of. Let me know if I can be of any help. St★lwart¹¹¹ 09:41, 18 October 2014 (UTC)