ABSTRACT
Upon the death of Virginio Orsini in 1615, his son Paolo Giordano II succeeded him as third Duke of Bracciano. By the summer of 1629, Paolo Giordano established patron-client ties to the composers Stefano Landi and Giovanni Rovetta. Landi seems to have participated in the musical pastimes at the Orsini castle in Bracciano. The connection of Paolo Giordano to the aforementioned singers, and to composers such as Landi and Luigi Rossi, shows that the mechanism of musical patronage in Rome was often characterized by loose relationships between patrons and musicians. Paolo Giordano's patronage was not restricted to a circle of artists hired on a temporary basis, as was the case with Antonio Archilei, Jacopo Cicognini, and the Caccinis. Paolo Giordano set the career of Francesco Petratti in motion. His music has garnered scholarly attention, mainly for the involvement of Claudio Monteverdi in the printing of his first book of arie, which was dedicated to the Duke of Bracciano.
