Apostolo Zeno: A critical edition of the Poesie sacre

The sociopolitical conditions brought about by the catholic Counter Reformation give rise to a very specific form of cultural activities at the Viennese imperial court. These are based on what is called the Pietas austriaca and comprehend apart, of course, from the religious practices various musical genres initially brought from Mantua to the Viennese court by Empress Eleonora Gonzaga II. Within the sacred music, the so called Sacre rappresentazioni, especially the Sepolcri (performed during the Holy Week, in front of an image of the Holy Sepulcher) developed their own very characteristic form and generated a wide resonance in all neighboring countries, including Italy. The libretti of virtually all these musical compositions, created between the second half of the 17 th and the first half of the 18th century, are in Italian just as the contemporary operas. The latter, however, exercise a much greater attraction (especially the grandiose Viennese Court Operas) on researchers, which results in a still very poor documentation of the sacred music of that period. This is even more regrettable, as its intellectual and artistic reception and importance for the creation of far better researched texts (e.g. the Händel oratorios) is highly significant. Recent publications prove the importance of these libretti whose theological dimension has, until now, been as much underestimated as the way contemporary political events are interwoven into the otherwise religious texts. However, one of the major assessments in the field is yet the lack of basic data; only few of the sacred music libretti are available and often the scientific quality of these publications is sadly deficient. Without a reliable critical edition, we have no basis for further research into the humanistic and philosophical background of these works. Together with Nicolò Minato (thanks to whom, in the second half of the 17th century, the genre reached its first apogee in Vienna) and Pietro Metastasio (who, by bestowing the ideas of early Christian enlightenment upon his oratorios, lead it to its culmination), Apostolo Zeno is one of the most important cesarean poets, not only in the field of sacred music: most of his 17 oratorio-libretti were set to music by Antonio Caldara and represented at the Viennese imperial court. One of these librettis most interesting aspect is their intertextuality, not only with reference to the Old and the New Testament, but also in relation to contemporary cultural and religious values and events; thus the double incentive to study Zenos texts in their undisputable literary quality, combined with the fact, that they constitute a precious testimony of the reigning mentality of the time in Austria and at the imperial court. A well-documented edition will therefore not only allow to research the development of the religious libretti and their transposition into or their imitation in German libretti; it will also give new insights into various cultural aspects, among them the philosophical positions on which the libretti are based.

The sociopolitical conditions brought about by the catholic Counter Reformation give rise to a very specific form of cultural activities at the Viennese imperial court. These are based on what is called the Pietas austriaca and comprehend - apart, of course, from the religious practices - various musical genres initially brought from Mantua to the Viennese court by Empress Eleonora Gonzaga II. Within the sacred music, the so-called Sacre rappresentazioni, especially the Sepolcri (performed during the Holy Week, in front of an image of the Holy Sepulcher) developed their own very characteristic form and generated a wide resonance in all neighboring countries, including Italy. The libretti of virtually all these musical compositions, created between the second half of the 17th and the first half of the 18th century, are in Italian - just as the contemporary operas. The latter, however, exercise a much greater attraction (especially the grandiose Viennese Court Operas) on researchers, which results in a still very poor documentation of the sacred music of that period. This is even more regrettable, as its intellectual and artistic reception and importance for the creation of far better researched texts (e.g., the Händel oratorios) is highly significant. Recent publications prove the importance of these libretti whose theological dimension has, until now, been as much underestimated as the way contemporary political events are interwoven into the otherwise religious texts. However, one of the major assessments in the field is yet the lack of basic data; only few of the sacred music libretti are available and often the scientific quality of these publications is sadly deficient. Without a reliable critical edition, we have no basis for further research into the humanistic and philosophical background of these works. Together with Nicolò Minato (thanks to whom, in the second half of the 17th century, the genre reached its first apogee in Vienna) and Pietro Metastasio (who, by bestowing the ideas of early Christian enlightenment upon his oratorios, lead it to its culmination), Apostolo Zeno is one of the most important cesarean poets, not only in the field of sacred music: most of his 17 oratorio-libretti were set to music by Antonio Caldara and represented at the Viennese imperial court. One of these libretti's most interesting aspect is their intertextuality, not only with reference to the Old and the New Testament, but also in relation to contemporary cultural and religious values and events; thus, the double incentive to study Zeno's texts in their undisputable literary quality, combined with the fact, that they constitute a precious testimony of the reigning mentality of the time in Austria and at the imperial court.