Olevano Romano
Olevano Romano is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Rome in the Italian region Latium, located about east of Rome.
It is the probable birthplace of the composer Giovanni Gentile.
Culture
Starting from the early 19th centur ...
– after 1649) was an Italian composer and music teacher.
Life and works
Two sources survive for his life and works: his only surviving work, a teaching-collection of music entitled ''Solfeggiamenti et ricercari a due voci'' (Lodovico Grignani,
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
1642); and the inventory of printed works in the workshop of the Roman printer Sebastiano Testa.Republished by Patrizio Barbieri in "Musica, tipografi e librai a Roma: Tecnologie di stampa e integrazioni biografiche (1583-1833)", ''Recercare'', 7 (1995).
In the teaching-collection's frontispiece, Gentile is called "Signor Giovanni Gentile of Olevano", which means he was a layman not a clergyman, and that his birthplace was
Olevano Romano
Olevano Romano is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Rome in the Italian region Latium, located about east of Rome.
It is the probable birthplace of the composer Giovanni Gentile.
Culture
Starting from the early 19th centur ...
(the existence of another Olevano, in Lomellina, may make even the second of these facts doubtful, but the fact that Gentile's artistic career only appears in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
makes Olevano Romano more likely to be correct).
As regards his teaching activity, the inclusion of ''solfeggiamenti a due'' ( solfèges for two voices) in its title is the only clue, along with the record in the aforementioned inventory, that on the date of 13 December 1729 reports: "Giovanni Gentile was from 1645-49 registered as a musician at Santo Stefano del Cacco (Rome), along with 3 grandchildren and some guests, possibly his student. In the vicinity of that church was the printer Ludovico Grignani, who in 1642 published Gentile's Solfeggi e ricercari a 2 voci". We also have a record of a grandson and a guest in the ''Solfeggiamenti'': its dedication to cardinal
Francesco Maria Brancaccio
Francesco Maria Brancaccio (15 April 1592, in Canneto, near Bari – 9 January 1675) was an Italian Catholic cardinal.