L'inedita immagine di una stamperia musicale romana del Settecento attribuita a Pier Leone Ghezzi

An office of the Passion today in the Museum of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome contains a frontispiece painted in watercolour in which a printing shop specialising in music printing is depicted. The image, which has been attributed to Pier Leone Ghezzi and can be dated to the first half of the eighteenth century, is especially rare: no other images of a music printing shop have been recorded. A further interesting detail in the picture is the presence of a young female compositor intent on her work, again a most unusual not to say unique depiction. The article gives a brief account of the production of this office of the Passion and of Ghezzi’s career before analysing in depth and from an iconographical point of view the image and its significance.