The Historical Archive

«Due canzonette ridotte Per Clavicembalo o Piano-Forte del Sig. Muzio Clementi. In Vienna e Magonza presso Artaria Comp.»

Alongside the library, the Centro Studi has an interesting historical archive.

This can essentially be divided into a section related to musical sources between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and a more modern one relating to sources from the 20th Century, with a large collection dedicated to Luigi Dallapiccola.

With regard to the first section, the Centro Studi possesses a collection, the result of acquisitions made over time, of manuscript and printed musical sources from the period between the 18th and 19th centuries

The Centro Studi started a collaboration with RISM – Répertoire Internationale des Sources Musicales two years ago and the archive’s music sources are present in the database under the name
There are currently more than 400 sources. Many of the specimens can be found in very few international libraries and about 56 are unique sources belonging to the archive. Of these, some are new sources of already known works, others are works that were unknown before they were included in the RISM, which makes the archive an important resource for the accessibility of these sources.One can found them at the page:
The genres included in the archive are those typical of the classical and pre-Romantic period and range from piano concertos and orchestral sonatas to accompanied sonatas, from solo pieces to chamber music. In addition, one can find many sources on minor theatrical genres and opera arias arranged for ‘domestic’ ensembles as well as reels, songs and tunes from Anglo-Saxon culture and published extensively by publishers of the period.

Among the composers stand out names such as Luigi Boccherini, Giovanni Battista Viotti, Luigi Ferdinand of Prussia, Johann Baptist Cramer, Ferdinand Ries, Daniel Steibelt, Muzio Clementi, Ignace Pleyel, Giovanni Mane Giornovichi, Bonifazio Asioli and, in addition, one of the most substantial collection of sources of works by Jan Ladislav Dussek present in Italy can be found at the following page:

Search the Collection

The Centro Studi has been editing three national editions of the complete works of Pietro Antonio Locatelli, Luigi Boccherini and Muzio Clementi for many years now; to this end, the institute has collected a large number of sources from the most important European institutions and libraries. In addition, in order to draw up the catalogue of Jan Ladislav Dussek’s works it has been ordering further reproductions of many works of the Czech composer.

The collected sources number in the hundreds and consist of reproductions in paper and digital format. Naturally, these sources, as they are not the property of the Centro Studi, can only be made available to scholars who wish to consult them there, so as not to infringe copyright on reproductions that do not pertain to our institute. A section of the website is dedicated to a list describing both the source itself and its international location. The consultation of the list of document directly on site will be available at the following page:

Digital Collection

The historical archive also consists of a section that could be described as ‘modern’ and that is mainly related to documents, letters and works dating back to the musical world under the fascist regime. Of particular relevance is the Luigi Dallapiccola Collection, which includes librettos, programmes, scores, autographs, photographs and a large section of 36 letters by and to the composer.

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