Le pubbliche feste: Musical performances and propaganda strategies in Jacobin Milan (1796-1799)

Following the unstable consequences of the Napoleonic wars, Lombardy saw its political layout entering a quick transitional phase. While supposedly republican forms of government replaced former states, the new governors aimed at both wiping out every trace of the past and introducing a new palette of values through a carefully regulated plan of control and propaganda. Performing arts such as theatre, opera and music played a major role within this project, but new genres and occasions of performance were also created.

In this context, republican feasts, based on the model imported from early-1790s Paris, acquired a great importance: planned and realized by dedicated governmental commissions, they took place with increasing frequency and required huge expenditures of time, money and labour. Musical performances, interestingly combining pre-existing, modified and newly commissioned repertoires, were paired with various propaganda strategies, thus creating new cultural products and events.

This paper, making use of several primary sources coming from Milanese archives, will proceed from a carefully reconstructed historical and social context to the detailed description of some of the celebratory events that took place in republican Milan