Vincenzo Ciampi

Vincenzo Legrenzio Ciampi was an Italian composer and conductor born in 1719 in Piacenza. He pursued his musical education in Naples at the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella, where he studied under the prominent masters Francesco Durante and Leonardo Leo. His early career in Italy included his first notable success with the comic opera Da un disordine nasce un ordine in 1737, followed by several more comic operas in Naples up to 1745, as well as commissions for works in Rome and other Italian cities.

Before leaving Italy, Ciampi held a series of important appointments, serving in 1746 as a harpsichordist at the opera house in Palermo, where his opera seria Ataserse was performed in 1747. That same year he was engaged at the Ospedale degli Incurabili in Venice as assistant to maestro di coro G. B. Runcher, whom he succeeded by 1748. He was one of the first music directors there to be granted extended leave, and Gioacchino Cocchi replaced him during his absence.

From 1748 to 1752 Ciampi worked in London as a conductor for Italian opera companies, contributing to the lively operatic scene of the city. In London he served as composer and director of music for a company of Italian singers under G. F. Crosa, which presented the first season of Italian comic opera at the King’s Theatre. The repertoire included Gli tre cicisbei ridicoli, featuring the song Tre giorni son che Nina, later associated with Ciampi though its authorship remains uncertain. He continued to appear in London until 1756.

He then moved to Paris, where he was active between 1752 and 1756. His time in Paris coincided with the famous Querelle des Bouffons, a cultural clash that pitted supporters of French opera against advocates of Italian comic opera. Ciampi’s involvement in the operatic world during this period placed him at the center of one of the major musical debates of the mid‑18th century.

Ciampi composed numerous operas, including works based on the comedies of Carlo Goldoni and libretti by Pietro Metastasio. Among his known works are Bertoldo alla corte (1753) and Didone abbandonata (1754), and his music was also used in pasticcios such as Le Caprice amoureux, which incorporated parodied material from his opera Bertoldo alla corte. His music continued to circulate after his death, and selections from his operas were frequently incorporated into English pasticcios such as A Summer's Tale (1765), Lionel & Clarissa (1768), and The Captive (1769).

Beyond opera, he produced sacred music and instrumental compositions, demonstrating versatility across genres. Ciampi is also remembered in connection with the widely known song Nina, long attributed to Pergolesi, though modern scholarship questions Ciampi’s authorship. He died in Venice in 1762, having left a lasting contribution to the spread and development of Italian opera across major European cultural centers.

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