I quintetti «alla Nazione Francese»: iconografia di un’edizione postuma

The article examines the title page of the posthumous edition (1820) of Boccherini’s Quintets “alla Nazione Francese”, identifying its sources of inspiration, on the one hand, in a painting by Correggio, on the other hand, in the title page of the first Boccherini edition issued by Pleyel in 1798. It has besides been possible to ascertain that the posthumous print of the Quintets was realized by Lagarde and Nouzou (whose respective biographies are briefly outlined) some days before the murder of the duke of Berry. The dedication to the duchess was not therefore the homage to a widow, but a gift to the wife of the nobleman that had helped Lagarde to rehabilitate himself from his republican and Bonapartist past. At the same time, such a prestigious print is clearly intended as an object for bibliophiles that “sterilizes” Boccherini’s music, making of it a harmless heritage of the past.