Korespondence Ranieri Calzabigiho Václavu Antonínu z Kounic-Rietbergu jako pramen ke studiu nejen hudebních dějin
Correspondence of Ranieri Calzabigi with Wenzel Anton of Kounitz-Rietberg as a source for studying not only music history

Summary/Abstract: The Kounitz family archive, housed in the Moravian Provincial Archive, contains a very extensive fund of correspondence with Wenzel Anton of Kounitz-Rietberg, consisting of interesting sets of letters with various personalities of his time. A set of letters by the Italian poet and librettist Ranieri Calzabigi, which is stored here, represents almost the complete surviving correspondence of both persons. Two other letters are stored in another folder of the same archive, and one letter is stored for unknown reasons in the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. We also know of the existence of one letter from Kounitz to Calzabigi, which has survived only in its published form, and a draft of one of Kounitz’s replies is also part of the Grosse Korrespondenz collections of the Austrian State Archives. The correspondence thus assembled, comprising over 300 folios of manuscripts mostly in French and partly in Italian (49 letters and 16 enclosures in total), is a very valuable source of information for 18th century cultural history and is now the subject of a modern edition supplemented by English translations of the originals. The surviving correspondence consists mainly of letters from Calzabigi to Kounic, which can be divided into three time periods, among which no letters have survived: ca 1764–1775, 1780–1784 and 1789–1791. The letters written while both were in Vienna are more technical in content, relating to the operations of the French theatre in Vienna and to lotteries. After Calzabigi’s departure for Italy in 1774, the letters become a very comprehensive glossary of contemporary events, in which the writer draws Kounitz’s attention with information about musical theatre or the visual arts, but does not neglect to comment on the broader interests of both protagonists. This correspondence thus becomes an invaluable source of information about contemporary events not only in Italy.

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