A música na Igreja do Loreto em Lisboa, entre 1755 e 1785: As cerimónias religiosas, entre abalos sísmicos e políticos

Abstract

The Loreto Church (Lisbon) was founded by the Italian community at the beginning of the 16th century. Also known as the Italians Church, it was free from the jurisdiction of the Lisbon Patriarchate, depending directly on the Pope and, in Lisbon, on the Apostolic Nuncio. Destroyed by the fire that broke out after the 1755 earthquake, apart from the archive and the sacristy, at the end of the 1750s, the church resumed celebrations in the sacristy, solemnly commemorating the most important festivities of the liturgical calendar. The focus of this article are the solemn ceremonies and their music, organized between 1755 and 1785, in the Loreto Church. From the analysis of the documents in its archive, some doubts and questions arose, given that most of the solemn celebrations of great importance and of a political nature (appointments and funerals of popes and monarchs) had been carried out between 1773 and 1777. Why? Was it just an economic issue, due to the great destruction caused by the earthquake? Were there documents lost or were some important dates/persons not celebrated? Combining the analysis of the archive documents with historical elements, important data emerged: from 1755 onwards, the organization of the ceremonies of the Italians Church was shaped by two types of earthquakes, one of a seismic nature and the other of a political nature.