Loreto Vittori was an Italian castrato

Castrato

A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...

 and composer. From 1622 until his death he was as a soprano singer in the papal chapel

Sistine Chapel

Sistine Chapel is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. It is famous for its architecture and its decoration that was frescoed throughout by Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio...

 in Rome.

Life

Loreto Vittori was educated in Rome and was a pupil of Giovanni Bernardino Nanino

Giovanni Bernardino Nanino

Giovanni Bernardino Nanino was an Italian composer, teacher and singing master of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, and a leading member of the Roman School of composers...

, Francesco Soriano

Francesco Soriano

Francesco Soriano was an Italian composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most skilled members of the Roman School in the first generation after Palestrina....

 and the Spanish singer Francisco Soto de Langa. He then worked as a singer in Loreto

Loreto

-Places:*Loreto, Santiago del Estero, Argentina*Loreto , village and municipality in Misiones Province, Argentina*Loreto, Beni, Bolivia*Loreto , Brazil...

 and Spoleto

Spoleto

Spoleto is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome.-History:...

. In 1618 Loreto was placed under the protection of the Medici

Medici

The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...

 family. He moved to Rome in 1621, first at the service of Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Pope Gregory XV, and in 1632 the service of Cardinal Antonio Barberini

Antonio Barberini

Antonio Barberini was an Italian Catholic cardinal, Archbishop of Reims, military leader, patron of the arts and a prominent member of the House of Barberini. As one of the cardinal-nephews of Pope Urban VIII and a supporter of France, he played a significant role at a number of the papal...

, nephew of the future Urban VIII.

He sang at the premiere of La catena d'Adone

La catena d'Adone

La catena d'Adone is the only surviving opera by the Italian composer Domenico Mazzocchi. It was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandini and first performed at the Palazzo Conti, Rome on February 12, 1626...

 by Domenico Mazzocchi

Domenico Mazzocchi

Domenico Mazzocchi was an Italian baroque composer of the generation after Claudio Monteverdi. He was a composer of only vocal music, motets, oratorios and madrigals which have continuo, similar to the late Monteverdi's ones....

 in 1626; and in 1628 in La Flora

La Flora

La Flora, o vero Il natal de' fiori is an opera in a prologue and five acts composed by Marco da Gagliano and Jacopo Peri to a libretto by Andrea Salvadori. It was first performed on 14 October 1628 at the Teatro Mediceo in Florence to celebrate the marriage of Margherita de' Medici and Odoardo...

, o vero Il natal de' fiori (Flora, or The Birth of Flowers) an opera composed by Marco da Gagliano

Marco da Gagliano

Marco da Gagliano was an Italian composer of the early Baroque era. He was important in the early history of opera and the development of the solo and concerted madrigal.-Life:...

 and Jacopo Peri

Jacopo Peri

Jacopo Peri was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera...

 to a libretto by Andrea Salvadori

Andrea Salvadori

Andrea Salvadori was an Italian poet and librettist. He was born in Florence and educated at the Collegio Romano in Rome. From 1616 until his death in Florence at the age of 43, he was the principal court poet to the Medici family...

. In 1642 he sang the role of Angelica in Il Palazzo di Atlante incantato by Luigi Rossi with libretto by Cardinal Rospigliosi, the future Clement IX.

Bernardo Pasquini

Bernardo Pasquini

right|thumb|Bernardo PasquiniBernardo Pasquini was an Italian composer of opera and church music.He was born at Massa in Val di Nievole . He was a pupil of Antonio Cesti and Loreto Vittori...

 was his pupil.

Works

• In 1639 he wrote a spectacular opera entitled La Galatea, rediscovered and revived in 2005. La Galatea is peopled with multi-dimensional characters and contains moments of great dramatic intensity, the reason, perhaps, for the unusually warm praise it received from music historians in the early part of the twentieth century.
• He composed the oratorio Ignatius of Loyola, which is lost, two melodramas entitled Sant' Irene (1644) and La Pellegrina (1647);
• the play La fiera di Palestrina, a comedy "Le zittelle Cantarini", a collection of monodies
  Monody
  In poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments another's death....
  
   and "Dialoghi sacri e morali".
• A mock-heroic poem, La Troja rapita, (1662). an autobiographical poem that contains important information on the the environment of the Roman Barberini
  Barberini
  The Barberini are a family of the Italian nobility that rose to prominence in 17th century Rome. Their influence peaked with the election of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini to the papal throne in 1623, as Pope Urban VIII...
  
   in the days of Pope Eugenius IV.