Rosa, Salvator(e)
Rosa, Salvator(e)
Rosa, Salvator(e) , Italian painter, poet, and musician; b. Arenella, near Naples, June 21, 1615; d. Rome, March 15, 1673. He studied music and became an expert lute player. From 1635 to 1640 he divided his time between Rome and Naples, and from 1640 to 1649 was court painter to the Medici at Florence; then lived in Rome. The pieces credited to Rosa by Burney and others have been proved to be spurious; it is doubtful whether Rosa ever composed music. His satire, La musica, written about 1640 and containing sharp criticism of Italian church music of his day, was publ. posthumously in 1695, and was reprinted several times. Mattheson attacked Rosa’s views in his Mithridat, wider den Gift einer welschen Satyre des Salvator Rosa (1749).
Bibliography
D. Battesti, Saggio sulla vita e le satire di S. R. (Bourges, 1913); F. Gerra, S. R. e la sua vita romana dal 1650 al 1672… (a summary of 200 letters written by Rosa; Rome, 1937).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire