Olybrius - Olybrius in Culture

Olybrius in Culture

Olybrius had a palace in the Tenth region of Constantinople at one end of the Mese, the main street, along the Constantinianae. Olybrius also restored, at his own expense, the nearby church of Saint Euphemia, a famous church that had been chosen by Pulcheria, sister of Theodosius II, for the Council of Chalcedon in 451. This choice was a sign of the bond between Olybrius, a Roman senator, with the imperial House of Theodosius.

In 1707, Apostolo Zeno and Pietro Pariati wrote a libretto entitled Flavio Anicio Olibrio. The story told in the opera is quite different from the real one, despite the fact that Zeno claimed to use several historical sources (Evagrius Scholasticus l.2.c.7, Procopius of Caesarea, Historia Vandalorum, l.1, Paul the Deacon, vi): Ricimer captures Rome, frees his sister Teodolinda and enslaves Placidia, daughter of Valentinian III; a little later, Olybrius frees Rome and Placidia, and marries her.

The libretto was written for a dramma per musica in three acts by Francesco Gasparini, performed that same year in the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice, but the same libretto was put in music also by Nicola Porpora (1711, in Neaples, as Il trionfo di Flavio Anicio Olibrio), by Leonardo Vinci (Naples, 1728, as Ricimero), and by Andrea Bernasconi (1737, Wien, as Flavio Anicio Olibrio o La tirannide debellata). The libretto was also rewritten for the Ricimero by Niccolo Jommelli, performed at the Teatro Argentina in Rome in 1740.