Jerónimo Francisco de Lima

Jerónimo Francisco de Lima was born in the parish of Nossa Senhora da Ajuda, in Belém, in 1741, the son of António Francisco de Lima and Elena Maria da Cruz. He was admitted to the Patriarchal Seminary at the age of ten, “as he already knew something of music”¹, and there are records that he began his compositional activity at just 16 years old². Between 1761 and 1767, by order of King José I, and alongside other Portuguese composers, among whom João Sousa de Carvalho stands out, he continued his studies at the Conservatorio di Sant’Onofrio a Capuana in Naples, where a new school of composition was emerging, led by David Perez (1711–1778) and Niccolò Jommelli (1714–1774)³. Upon returning to Portugal, he was appointed organist and maestro at the Patriarchal Seminary and resumed the duties of singer he had previously held there. In 1787, he was in the service of the English writer William Beckford during his stay in Sintra, and his music received favourable mentions from the writer⁴. About a decade later, in 1798, upon the death of João de Sousa Carvalho, he took his place as mestre de capela of the Patriarchal Seminary⁵.

Alongside his musical and pedagogical career, Jerónimo Francisco de Lima composed several serenatas, operas, and other dramas intended to be presented at the Portuguese court or in private performances. His serenata Le nozze d’Ercole e d’Ebe was heard on April 13, 1785, at the palace of the Spanish ambassador, the Count of Fernán Núñez, on the occasion of a double marriage between members of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. His two drammi giocosi – Lo spirito di contradizione and La vera costanza – were presented at the winter palace of Salvaterra de Magos during the Carnival period, the first in 1772 and the second in 1785⁶. The first of these musical dramas was introduced to modern audiences at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in 1985, in a staging by Paolo Trevisi⁷. He also wrote Gli Orti Esperidi (1779), Enea in Tracia (1781), Teseo (1783), and the cantata La Galatea, as well as several works of a religious nature. He died on February 19, 1822⁸.