Anfione e Nivildo. Nota sui rapporti di Niccolò Jommelli con l'arcade Gioacchino Pizzi

The Roman poet Gioacchino Pizzi (1716-1790) was a leading figure of the Accademia dell’Arcadia in the second half of the Eighteenth Century. His relationship with the composer Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774) is investigated for the first time. Their collaboration started in 1751 in the occasion of the creation of a “componimento drammatico” for the birthday of King Joseph I of Portugal. They worked together again in 1757, when they wrote “Il Creso”, a three-acts opera performed at the Teatro di Torre Argentina. The friendship between the man of letters and the musician is clearly described in Pizzi’s undated ode “Per la venuta in Roma del celebre maestro di cappella il signor Niccolò Jommelly” (given in full text in appendix I), containing allusions to the principal serious operas composed by Jommelli in Rome. The contact with the Arcadia, where he was admitted with the pastoral name of Anfione Eteoclide, led Jommelli to wrote two little known poems,“Cara Euterpe, oh dio! perdono”, published in 1757 in a large anthology for the marriage of Giacinta Orsini and Antonio Boncompagni Ludovisi, and “Se al dirceo fonte perenne”, included in another anthology celebrating the reconciliation of Pope Clemente XIV with the King of Portugal in 1771 (the two texts are offered in appendixes II and III).