Marco Coltellini da Montepulciano all'Europa

Marco Coltellini (1724-1777) occupies a prominent place in the history of eighteenth-century music and culture. After having been active as a publisher and typographer in Livorno, he devoted himself to writing libretti, first in Vienna, working for the imperial theaters, and then in St. Petersburg, in the service of Catherine II. During the years he spent in the Habsburg capital, he created original and innovative dramas, contributing to the ‘reform’ of opera promoted by Giacomo Durazzo’s circle. Thanks to his international career, he collaborated with eminent opera composers, including Gianfrancesco de Majo, Tommaso Traetta, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Giuseppe Scarlatti, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Salieri, and Giovanni Paisiello. The ten essays collected in the volume (the result of a conference held in Montepulciano in 2024 on the occasion of the third centenary of his birth) help to clarify Coltellini’s biography in light of new data, retrace the network of his professional and artistic relationships, and offer previously unpublished readings of some of his most significant texts.