Pio VII, la principessa von Dietrichstein e Luigi Confidati. Un “nuovo” manoscritto d’occasione della Biblioteca Piana (ms. Piana 8.378)

The essay presents the literary-musical manuscript Piana 8.378, offered as a gift to Pope Pius VII in 1814 by the Russian-born princess Alexandra Andrejewna von Dietrichstein. The reconstruction of the context of the elaboration of the texts contained therein (a Te Deum set to music by Luigi Confidati and seven poetic compositions) and of the events that led to the realisation of the volume restores a not insignificant piece of the celebrations that welcomed the return to the city of the Pope after the long exile, first in Savona and then in Fontainebleau, to which Napoleon had forced him. The study of the socio-cultural network that emerges from the manuscript allows, at the same time, an exceptional look at the literary and musical panorama of Rome in the early 19th century.