Coming seminar on sound itineraries about French monarchy in the 18th century Rome

DATES AND LOCATION

Thursday 30, 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.Department of French and Italian Philology Boardroom (Av. de Blasco Ibáñez, 32, València)

• French-aligned nobility sponsorship in the 18^th century Rome: the Vaini family case.

Friday 31, 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.Department of French and Italian Philology Boardroom (Av. de Blasco Ibáñez, 32, València)

• Music at the Roman Church of San Luigi dei Fancesi during the 18^th Century as a French Monarchy Propaganda Resource.

Information about the seminarValencià, Spanish, Italian.

More information and inscriptions:

andrea.bombi@uv.es | ferran.escriva-llorca@uv.es

Devozione, identità e rappresentazione. Itinerari sonori della monarchia francese nella Roma moderna tra cerimonie straordinarie e magnificenza nobiliare

The seminar will explore how music became a strategic tool of visibility, identity and representation for the Bourbon monarchy of the 18^th century Rome, using the Vaini family and the San Luigi dei Francesi musical activity as a starting point. The seminar is a part of the Monarchy Phonospheres Cycle. From the Old Regime to Liberalism. Including: ‘The ceremony universe of Liberalism’ and ‘Sound images of the French monarchy’.

Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Rome represented a unique crossroads of political and religious power—a “holy court” recognized by European sovereigns as a center of magnificence and ceremony. The pontiff, in his dual role as spiritual leader and territorial sovereign, was flanked by a polycentric court composed of cardinals, Roman and foreign nobles, ambassadors, and princes, each presiding over his own micro-court. These actors used music and festivities as instruments for representing power and identity—both noble and national—seeking to assert themselves within the city’s complex social and political network.

From a sonic perspective, Rome thus took shape as an articulated acoustic landscape, where music moved between the sacredness of extraordinary liturgies in churches—often the seats of national communities that turned them into places of identity and representation—and the performative practices of noble courts, where spectacle and splendor underscored the magnificence and prestige of their hosts. The city’s soundscape, therefore, mirrored the stratification of powers and identities, intertwining religious devotion and political ostentation.

The seminar will focus on the sonic manifestations related to the French monarchy within this complex political, religious, and cultural framework. First, it will highlight how the projection of Bourbon power in the papal city was not expressed solely through the official channels of diplomacy, but found one of its most effective articulations in the network of alliances woven with the Roman and pro-French aristocracy. In particular, thanks to studies carried out within the framework of the PerformArt project, the seminar will analyze the patronage activities and magnificent performative practices organized by the Vaini family in their private spaces—an exemplary case of how the nobility contributed to constructing a political and cultural representation of the French monarchy in Rome. Subsequently, the analysis of the extraordinary music produced in the national church of San Luigi dei Francesi will make it possible to observe how liturgy itself could take on the features of a spectacular practice, serving to celebrate the French presence in Rome. Although formally inscribed within the context of worship, these ceremonies became occasions to assert the prestige of the crown and the centrality of the French nation within a delicate game of international balance. In this light, these examples reveal how national presence—embodied both by ecclesiastical institutions and by aristocratic agents—actively contributed to the redefinition of the city’s soundscape. Musical practices, distributed between sacred and secular spaces, thus played a part in a symbolic overturning of power structures in eighteenth-century Rome, transforming sound into a strategic instrument of visibility, identity, and representation.

About Dr. Michela Berti

Michela Berti is Professor of Music History at the “Francesco Morlacchi” Conservatory in Perugia and head of the historical archive of the Pieux Établissements de la France à Rome et à Lorette.
A Marie Curie Fellow (2013–2015) for the project “Le modèle musical des églises nationales à Rome à l’époque baroque” at the University of Liège, she oversaw the publication of the volume Music and the Identity Process: the National Churches of Rome and their Networks in the Early Modern Period (“Épitome musical,” Brepols, 2019), together with Émilie Corswarem. From 2016 to 2022, she served as coordinator of scientific activities, researcher, and database administrator for the ERC CoG PerformArt project, within which, together with Anne-Madeleine Goulet, she co-edited the volume Noble Magnificence: Cultures of the Performing Arts in Rome, 1644–1740 (“Épitome musical,” Brepols, 2024). Between 2010 and 2012, she worked at the École française de Rome, the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rome, and the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften as part of the ANR-DFG project “Musici”, where she was the scientific head of the database. Her most recent publications are devoted to digital humanities, particularly to database management and the construction of thesauri on musical subjects. Her monograph “Viva Luigi! Musiche straordinarie a S. Luigi dei Francesi di Roma nel XVIII secolo” (SEdM, 2025) is forthcoming.

About FonUrMed

The Sound cities. Mediterranean Urban Phonospheres (1500-1900) (FonUrMed) project continues the research of the Emergent Group ‘Sound City. Music, Sound and Noise (1609-1813)’ [CIGE/2021/165] has reached important results in its area: the study from the urban musicology perspective, analysed how urban music and culture in València evolved between the morisco expulsion in 1609 and the absolutism restoration in 1813 with Fernando VII.
Research Project: Sound cities. Mediterranean Urban Phonospheres (1500-1900) (FonUrMed)