Editing Alessandro Scarlatti (section)

==Life==
Scarlatti was born in [[Palermo]] (or in [[Trapani]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13515a.htm|title=CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Alessandro Scarlatti|website=www.newadvent.org|access-date=5 February 2018}}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Hr7nxaZ5cCEC&dq=alessandro+scarlatti+trapani+1659&pg=PP11 Alfred Music, ''Anthology of Italian Songs'' (17th & 18th Century), Volume I: Vocal Collection]
</ref>), then part of the [[Kingdom of Sicily (Medieval and Early Modern)|Kingdom of Sicily]]. He received his first musical education in his family in Palermo.
[[File:Alessandro Scarlatti.png|thumb|left|upright|Portrait of Scarlatti, adolescent]]
He is generally said to have been a pupil of [[Giacomo Carissimi]] in [[Rome]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shrock |first=Dennis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BpScEAAAQBAJ |title=Choral Repertoire |date=2022 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-762240-7 |pages=236 |language=en |quote=Alessandro Scarlatti 1660-1725...Nothing is known about his youth except that he moved to Rome with his family when he was twelve and likely studied with Giacomo Carissimi.}}</ref> and some theorize that he had some connection with northern Italy because his early works seem to show the influence of [[Alessandro Stradella|Stradella]] and [[Giovanni Legrenzi|Legrenzi]]. The production at Rome of his opera ''Gli equivoci nel sembiante'' (1679) gained him the support of Queen [[Christina of Sweden]] (who at the time was living in Rome), and he became her ''maestro di cappella''. In February 1684 he became ''maestro di cappella'' to the [[viceroy]] of [[Naples]], perhaps through the influence of his sister, an opera singer, who might have been the mistress of an influential Neapolitan noble. Here he produced a long series of operas, remarkable chiefly for their fluency and expressiveness, as well as other music for state occasions.

In 1702 Scarlatti left Naples and did not return until the Spanish domination had been superseded by that of the Austrians. In the interval he enjoyed the patronage of [[Ferdinando (III) de' Medici|Ferdinando de' Medici]], for whose private theatre near [[Florence]] he composed operas, and of [[Cardinal Ottoboni]], who made him his ''maestro di cappella'', and procured him a similar post at the [[Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore]] in Rome in 1703.

After visiting [[Venice]] and [[Urbino]] in 1707, Scarlatti took up his duties in Naples again in 1708, and remained there until 1717. By this time Naples seems to have become tired of his music; the Romans, however, appreciated it better, and it was at the [[Teatro Capranica]] in Rome that he produced some of his finest operas (''[[Telemaco (Scarlatti)|Telemaco]]'', 1718; ''Marco Attilio Regolò'', 1719; ''[[Griselda (A. Scarlatti)|La Griselda]]'', 1721), as well as some noble specimens of church music, including a ''[[Messa di Santa Cecilia]]'' for chorus and orchestra, composed in honor of [[Saint Cecilia]] for Cardinal [[Francesco Acquaviva]] in 1721. His last work on a large scale appears to have been the unfinished ''[[Erminia (Scarlatti)|Erminia]]'' [[serenata]] for the marriage of the prince of [[Stigliano]] in 1723. He died in Naples in 1725 and is entombed there at the church of [[Santa Maria di Montesanto, Naples|Santa Maria di Montesanto]].