Francesco Bartolomeo Conti

Who was Francesco Bartolomeo Conti?

Francesco Bartolomeo Conti was an Italian composer and player of the mandolin and theorbo. He also wrote the oldest mandolin method book that has survived.

Little is known about the biography of Conti. He was born in Florence, Italy. By 1700 he was already known as a theorbist not only in his native Florence, but also in other cities such as Ferrara and Milan. The fame he enjoyed by 1701 enabled him to obtain appointment as an auxiliary theorbist at the Habsburg court in Vienna with the same salary as the main theorbist, Orazio Clementi. At the 1706 carnival he made his debut as an opera composer with Cleotide, and in 1713 was appointed as a court composer. In 1708, with the death of Clementi, Conti was promoted senior theorbist, a position he held until 1726. In the same year he was elected a member of the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna and in 1711 he was appointed vice-Kapellmeister in Vienna. In April of that year, after the death of his first wife, Theresia Kugler, Conti remarried to prima donna Maria Landini, at that time the highest-paid singer in Vienna. She sang the main soprano roles in Conti's operas from 1714 and 1721, but died in 1722. After her death Anna Maria Lorenzana was appointed prima donna and performed in three more of Conti's operas. She became his third wife in April 1725. On 28 August 1723, Conti, as theorbist, took part in the first performance of the festival opera Costanza e Fortezza by Johann Joseph Fux. In 1726 and again during 1729 to 1732 Conti visited Italy because of health problems. He returned to Vienna in 1732, where he staged two new operas but in July of the same year he died. He was succeeded by his son Ignazio Conti.