Leonora Baroni (December 1611 – 6 April 1670)Pannella was an Italian singer,

theorbist The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box (a hollow box) with a wooden top, typically with a sound hole, and a neck extending out ...

, lutenist,

viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...

player, and composer.

Biography

She was the daughter of Adriana Basile, a '' virtuosa'' singer, and Mutio Baroni. Leonora Baroni was born at the Gonzaga court in

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. She sang alongside her mother and sister

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at court and across Italy, including cities such as

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

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, and

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.Cusick She was admired not only for her skill as a musician, in which she almost overshadowed her mother, but also for her learning and refined manners. Baroni was honored by poets such as Fulvio Testi and

Francesco Bracciolini Francesco Bracciolini (26 November 1566 – 31 August 1645) was an Italian poet. Biography Bracciolini was born of a noble family in Pistoia in 1566. On his removing to Florence he was admitted into the academy there, and devoted himself to lit ...

, who addressed poems to her, as did some nobles, such as Annibale Bentivoglio and then-cardinal

Pope Clement IX Pope Clement IX ( la, Clemens IX; it, Clemente IX; 28 January 1600 – 9 December 1669), born Giulio Rospigliosi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 20 June 1667 to his death in December 1669. Biography Ear ...

. These poems were collected and published as ''Applausi poetici alle glorie della Signora Leonora Baroni'' in 1639 and reprinted in 1641. John Milton later wrote a series of epigrams to her, entitled ''Ad Leonoram Romae canentem''.Bertini/Parisi In 1633, Baroni moved with her mother to

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, where she sang at many salons in the

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. On 27 May 1640 Baroni married Giulio Cesare Castellani, Cardinal Francesco Barberini's personal secretary. In February 1644, Baroni moved to the French court of

Anne of Austria Anne of Austria (french: Anne d'Autriche, italic=no, es, Ana María Mauricia, italic=no; 22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was an infanta of Spain who became Queen of France as the wife of King Louis XIII from their marriage in 1615 un ...

briefly, but by April 1645 she was back in Rome, where she was a

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singer. Apparently she was not admired in

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, perhaps because her Italian style of ornamented singing was too foreign to the court there. None of Baroni's compositions survive, but the French traveller and viol player André Maugars mentioned her compositions while praising the musical understanding of her singing.

Notes

References

* * * Suzanne G. Cusick, "Leonora Baroni", ''The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers''. Edited by Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel. W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 1995. (page 37) * L. Pannella, «BARONI, Eleonora (Leonora, Lionora), detta anche l'Adrianella o l'Adrianetta». In : ''

Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani The ''Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani'' ( en, Biographical Dictionary of the Italians) is a biographical dictionary published by the Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, started in 1925 and completed in 2020. It includes about 40,000 biograp ...

'', Vol. VII, Roma : Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1965, ''ad vocem''
on-line
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baroni, Leonora 1611 births 1670 deaths 17th-century Italian composers 17th-century Italian actresses 17th-century Italian women singers Italian women classical composers Italian Baroque composers Italian lutenists Theorbists Viol players Italian stage actresses 17th-century women composers