Venturi Music Collection

[1] In 1933, Antonio Venturi (1905-1981), teacher at Montecatini High School, musician, and collectionist, convinced Alessandro Pichi-Sermolli, who was on the verge of selling all of his belongings, to entrust him with the management of the musical documents.

[3] Venturi united the Sermolli manuscripts with his own personal paper collection, bought from ragmen, originating from the Distanti Academy, running in Pistoia and Gavinana (San Marcello Pistoiese).

[2] Aware that the musical manuscripts represent the most precious items of his collection, in 1958, he allowed an inventory to be completed by Raymond Meylan,[4] a musicologist and flautist from Switzerland, and who was Venturi's colleague in the summer season orchestra of the Giglio Theater in Lucca.

For the on-line recataloguing, the Center of Tuscan Musical Documentation (Centro della Documentazione Musicale Toscana: CeDoMus) collaborated.

[1][2] It also conserves theoretical works, such as Musico prattico by Giovanni Maria Bononcini, L'armonico pratico al cembalo by Francesco Gasparini, and the three notes, titled Combinazioni di registrature, Regole generali and Regole generali per la Messa, which was anonymous and conserved by the nobleman Pietro Sermolli of Buggiano[6] on the correct recording of the organ during the performance of the eight ecclesiastic tones of the Latin mass.