Acciaiuoli, Filippo

Extract

(b Rome, Feb 24, 1637; d Rome, Feb 7, 1700). Italian impresario and deviser of scenic effects. He studied at the Seminario Romano, where he performed in the Latin tragedies and intermedi produced during the carnivals of 1651–3. In January 1657 he joined the Florentine Accademia degli Immobili, which produced comic operas. Before he became a Knight of Malta on 9 August 1666 he had to serve in at least four caravans, and thus travelled widely, even to Asia, Africa and America. He returned to Rome for the reign of Pope Clement IX, 1667–9 (the opera librettist Giulio Rospigliosi), who named Acciaiuoli's brother Niccolò a cardinal in 1669. During the next three decades Filippo was the theatrical master-mind behind many spectacular operas produced in and around Rome. He may have been involved with most of those given at the Palazzo Colonna, where his first two were produced in ...