Alessandro Melani - Sacred Music for the Pauline Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore

The Pauline Chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is one of the most complex and significant ecclesiastical buildings in Counter-Reformation Rome. It was conceived as relic venue and built to underline and reassert Catholic doctrine in response to the reforming zeal of Protestantism. This Chapel preserves, among other relics, the Virgin of Saint Luke, a painting that according to legend was drafted by the apostle Luke and completed by the angels. The statutes of this Chapel...
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The Pauline Chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is one of the most complex and significant ecclesiastical buildings in Counter-Reformation Rome. It was conceived as relic venue and built to underline and reassert Catholic doctrine in response to the reforming zeal of Protestantism. This Chapel preserves, among other relics, the Virgin of Saint Luke, a painting that according to legend was drafted by the apostle Luke and completed by the angels. The statutes of this Chapel were approved in 1615, committing the ¿Salve¿ services (always including the antiphon Salve Regina, which expresses the Marian concepts embodied by the Pauline Chapel) to twelve musicians: ten singers, one organist, and the chapel master. They sang litanies, antiphons, and the Compline service every Saturday night, at all feasts, and on the eves of Marian feasts. The earliest ¿Salve¿ music that has been preserved is that composed by Alessandro Melani (1639¿1703), who directed the Pauline Chapel musicians from 1667 until his death. Written for two choirs and sung with one voice assigned to each part, this is a systematic repertoire by a single composer for the most important Marian chapel of the Roman Counter-Reformation.