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iThis is the first dedicated study of the musical patronage of a Roman baronial family in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Patronage – the support of a person or institution and their work by a patron – in Renaissance society was the basis of a complex network of familial and political relationships between clients and patrons, whose ideas, values, and norms of behavior were shared with the collective. Bringing to light new archival documentation, this book examines the intricate network of patronage interrelationships in Rome. Unlike other Italian cities where political control was monocentric and exercised by single rulers, sources of patronage in Rome comprised a multiplicity of courts and potential patrons, which included the pope, high prelates, nobles, and foreign diplomats. Morucci uses archival records, and the correspondence of the Orsini and Colonna families in particular, to investigate the local activity and circulation of musicians and the cultivation of music within the broader civic network of Roman aristocratic families during the period. The author also shows that the familial union of the Medici and Orsini families established a bidirectional network for artistic exchange outside of the Eternal City, and that the Orsini-Colonna circle represented a musical bridge between Naples, Rome, and Florence.

This article focuses on the diplomatic apparatus developed by the Roman baron Gentil Virginio Orsini during the final decades of the fifteenth century. Through an analysis of the missions carried out by his ambassadors, well documented by an unpublished body of sources, the paper explores the strategies through which a minor political figure as Orsini managed to carve out a role within the broader diplomatic environment of Renaissance Italy. In such a system, diplomacy functioned as a practical means of consolidating his political autonomy and served as a key instrument for enhancing his influence within the Italian political scenario.

The Orsini were one of the most powerful baronial families of early modern Rome. Although the family's contribution to the development of Italian art has been recognized, its role in the patronage of music has not yet received the full attention of music historians. Based on extensive documentary and archival research, this study focuses on artistic activity at the court of Duke Virginio Orsini (1572–1615). By providing new information on composers working under his secular influence, among whom are Giulio Caccini, Luca Marenzio and Emilio de' Cavalieri, and some prominent singers of that time, I reveal the existence of a Roman–Florentine circle of musicians and poets who gravitated towards the courts of the Orsini and the Medici, and played a significant role in the flourishing of poetry and music.