A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Arrigoni, Carlo
ARRIGONI, Carlo, a lutenist, born at Florence at the beginning of last century, whose only claim to notice is his possible antagonism to Handel. He is said by Fétis and Schoelcher to have been engaged, with Porpora, as composer to the theatre at Lincoln's Inn, which was started as an opposition to Handel in 1734, and to have produced there in that year an opera called 'Fernando' without success; but it is impossible to discover on what this is grounded. That Arrigoni was in London at or about that date is possible, and even probable, since a volume of his 'Cantate da Camera' was published there in 1732; and in Arbuthnot's satire 'Harmony in an Uproar,' the 'King of Arragon' is mentioned amongst Handel's opponents, a name which Burney ('Commemoration') explains to mean Arrigoni. But on the other hand the impression he made must have been very small, and his opera becomes more than doubtful, for the names neither of Arrigoni nor Fernando are found in the histories of Burney or Hawkins, in the MS. Register of Colman, in the newspapers of the period, nor in any other sources to which the writer has had access. It is in accordance with this that Arrigoni is mentioned by Chrysander in connection with Arbuthnot's satire only ('Händel,' ii. 343).
In 1738, taking a leaf out of his great antagonist's book, he produced an oratorio called 'Esther,' at Vienna, after which he appears to have retired to Tuscany, and to have died there about 1743.[ G. ]