[Nelson, Horatio. (1758 - 1805)] Bianchi, Francesco. (1752 - 1810) . "Nuovo Metodo Per apprendere con facilità L'accompagnamento...1807" - MANUSCRIPT FROM THE LIBRARY OF LORD NELSON'S FAMILY. Oblong folio (9.625 x 11.875 inches; 244 x 303 mm.). [25] leaves. Written in black ink in an unknown hand on ten-stave paper. Watermarked: 1806 (?) and "Evans & Sons". Binding size: 10.5 x 12.75 inches; 269 x 323 mm.). No. 1 - No. 82. Contemporary marbled paper covered boards with dark blue morocco-grain paper spine and brown leather tips. Binding quite worn, with loss to both paper and leather, especially at board edges. Piece of paper (upper half torn away) affixed to front board inscribed ind faded black ink: "Lord Nelson fa... / at Burnham Thorpe. / & sold at the Burnham / Thorpe sale 40 years ago. / [flourish]." With a small circular label in the lower corner of the front board numbered in ink: 373. First leaf soiled and darkened with a tiny tear to lower edge, paper slightly browned, especially at the edges, small bookseller's ticket on front pastedown. The "New Easy Method for Learning Accompaniment," consists of graded lessons in rudiments, clef transposition, harmony, chord progressions, voice leading, modulation, harmonizing a given bass etc.


The Italian opera composer and Da Ponte collaborator was born in Cremona and studied with Cafaro and Jommelli, then working mainly in London and Paris and in all the major Italian operatic centres. His first opera, Giulio Sabino,was produced in Cremona in 1772; during the next 35 years he composed more than eighty operas, often traveling to Naples, Florence, Venice, or Paris to oversee or conduct performances. From 1785 to 1797 he was an organist at St. Mark's, Venice; there he also helped reorganize the diocesan archive. He composed a few oratorios, cantatas, Masses, and instrumental works and was a prominent teacher whose pupils included Sir Henry Bishop. He authored or coauthored five theoretical treatises, all of which have remained in manuscript only except for the Trattato d'armonia teorico pratico. See also: Amico : The Life of Giovanni Battista Viotti (Warwick Lister), p. 227.


The present manuscript is evidently from the library of the family of the highly esteemed British admiral best known for his participation in the Napoleonic Wars, during which, in the Battle of Trafalgar, he lost his life. Born at Burnham Thorpe, in 1788 he and Lady Nelson, Nelson's wife, formerly Frances "Fanny" Nisbet returned there to settle in his childhood home.