The label «Carafa di Maddaloni Collection» includes volumes from different collections which arrived at Rai Auditorium archives when OSN was created, later also collecting all music materials, with no distinction. As suggested in Una preziosa raccolta di manoscritti negli archivi musicali della Rai di Roma, the introductory essay by Annapia Sciolari Meluzzi and Giancarlo Vitali published on «Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana» n. 2/1988, the collection coming from the library of the Dukes Carafa di Maddaloni in Naples was sold in the 1950s to the antique bookshop Querzola in Rome. However, the older Neapolitan section, whose drafts were also more prestigious, was later complemented by a Roman addition, attributed to two rather wellborn dilettanti, Maria Modetti and Maria Belli: the latter may be the wife of poet Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli. Once more of Neapolitan provenance is a small corpus devoted to Marchesino Granito, born into another family from Naples. The collection constitutes an important reference to study the reception and dissemination of opera repertoire in Central and Southern Italy between the 18th and 19th century, both by the most acclaimed composers (Paisiello, Cimarosa, Pergolesi, Rossini, Mayr), and by other lesser known but largely performed ones (Tritto, Zingarelli, Palma, Guglielmi); no less, it is an invaluable example of the work of some printers in Naples and Rome. The exquisite frontispieces finely painted in watercolour can all be downloaded together with music incipits.

Neaples Section Rome Section