Crispo: Drama. Da Rappresentarsi Nel Regio Teatro d'Hay-Market, per La Reale Accademia di Musica.

Bookseller Notes

First edition of the libretto to Paolo Rolli's opera Crispo, performed in the Haymarket in 1721 by an Italian cast.This opera is a tragic rendering of the life of Flavius Julius Crispus (c. 300-326 CE), the eldest child of Constantine the Great and his first wife Minervina. Crispus was murdered, allegedly on his father's orders, and the subsequent execution of his stepmother Fausta led to contemporary speculation that the two were engaged in an affair. Although this has been called into question, the narrative echoes of Phaedra guaranteed that Crispus - as a latter-day Hippolytus - would become a popular tragic hero. The likely source for the present adaptation is Bernardino Stefonio's neo-Latin tragedy Crispus, which debuted at the Jesuit Collegio Romano in 1597. This inspired many seventeenth-century adaptations including French versions by Francois de Grenaille (L'Innocent malhereux (1639)) and by Tristan l'Hermite (La Morte de Chrispe ou les maleurs du grand Constantine (1645)). Our Crispo was written by Italian librettist Paolo Rolli (1687-1785), who had been brought to England by the Earl of Burlington and became attached to the court of George II as Italian tutor to Queen Caroline and the royal children. This was the period of London's 'opera mania' - as satirised by Hogarth - in which Rolli and his librettist contemporaries enjoyed near-celebrity status. From the library of Richard Luckett, Pepys Librarian, Magdalene, Cambridge, with his neat typographical book label designed by Will Carter of the Rampant Lions Press.Scarce: only 3 in UK (Birmingham, BL, Bodleian) and 4 in US (Folger, Huntington and Newberry x 2) according to ESTC.