ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an overview on the political and cultural situation in Rome connected to the presence of the papal court, and its musical context between around 1670 and 1720. From the beginning of the seventeenth century, the city had seen a notable increase in the number of ecclesiastical institutions, at the instigation of requests following the Council of Trent, which favored not only the creation of musical ensembles in the great churches and basilicas, but also the birth and establishment of new religious congregations and secular confraternities. This chapter examines the musical institutions with which Scarlatti had a professional connection: Ospedale di San Giacomo degli Incurabili, Oratorio di San Girolamo della Carità, Oratory of the Filippini, Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, and the Sistine Chapel. The second part of the chapter examines the styles and trends in sacred music in Rome between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
