The Vessella Manuscript

This edition of the so-called “Vessella Manuscript” is drawn from the Fondo Vessella located in the Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte in Rome. This collection was formerly in the possession of Alessandro Vessella (1860–1929), who studied piano and composition at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella in Naples, and was probably assembled during the second half of the eighteenth century. Among the Neapolitan composers featured in this collection, four names appear in connection to specific compositions: Leonardo Leo (1694–1744), Francesco Durante, Marchese Giovanni Battista Cedronio (1739–1789), and Filippo Cinque (dates unknown). An informative introduction by Nicoleta Paraschivescu explains that several of the pieces in this manuscript have been identified as realizations of partimenti.