Serenata a 3 RV 690

The Serenata a3 RV 690 is the least familiar and in certain respects the most enigmatic of the Vivaldi serenatas that have come down to us. The sole surviving source is the autograph manuscript of the score, preserved at the Biblioteca NazionaleUniversitaria of Turin. On the basis of this meagre information Michael Talbot managed to indentify the subject of the work and to suggest a key to the interpretation of its unusual plot, which transports to an allegorical plane the story of theFrench Jansenist Jean de Tourreil, who was arrested in Italy on the orders of the Holy Office and imprisoned in the Castel Sant Angelo.