Alessandri & Scattaglia

Extract

Italian firm of music and general engravers and publishers, music and print sellers. The firm was active in Venice at the sign of the Beata Vergine della Pace on the Rialto from about 1770 to at least 1803. It was founded by the engravers Innocente Alessandri (b Venice, c1740), a pupil of Francesco Bartolozzi, and Pietro Scattaglia. From about 1770, during the years of publication of their joint magnum opus, Animali quadrupedi (Venice, Carlo Palese, 1771–5, illustrated with 200 plates designed, engraved and hand-coloured by themselves), they also worked as engravers and selling agents for the music publisher Luigi Marescalchi; on at least one title-page they are also described as his printers, which may have been another of their regular responsibilities. Together with Marescalchi they were associated with the revival of music publishing in Italy after 70 years of almost total inactivity. The fact that their names appear on almost all title-pages of Marescalchi’s Venice editions has often led cataloguers and bibliographers to ascribe to them publications that should properly be regarded as Marescalchi’s, resulting in numerous errors in RISM, the ...