Antonio Alessandro Boncompagno Stradella (Bologna, 3 July 1643 – Genoa, 25 February 1682) was an Italian composer of the middle Baroque period. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, and collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres. Life Not much is known about his early life, but he was from a Tuscan aristocratic family, his father was Cavaliere Marc’ antonio Stradella of Piacenza. Stradella was educated at Rome, and was already making a name for himself as a composer at the age of 24. In 1667 he composed a Latin oratorio (lost) for the Confraternity of Crocifisso di San Marcello and in the following year the serenata La Circe for the Princess of Rossano Olimpia Aldobrandini Pamphilj. In 1671–72 he collaborated in staging some operas, two by Francesco Cavalli and two by Antonio Cesti, at the Tordinona Theater, composing prologues, intermedios and new arias. In the early 1670s he also composed some operas performed in private theaters of aristocratic families. Stradella began to live a dissolute life. With Carlo Ambrogio Lonati he attempted to embezzle money from the Roman Catholic Church, but was found out: he fled the city, only returning much later when he thought it was safe. His numerous incautious affairs with women began to make him enemies among the powerful men of the city, and he had to leave Rome for good. In 1677 he went to Venice, where he was hired by a powerful nobleman, Alvise Contarini, as the music tutor to his mistress, Agnese Van Uffele. She and Stradella began an affair and fled Venice together for Turin, where they were protected by Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours, the regent of Savoy. Contarini followed and instructed the Archbishop that Uffele and Stradella must marry or that Uffele must take the veil. She did the latter, and then the two married in October; however, as Stradella left the convent after signing the contract, he was attacked from behind on 10 October by two would-be hired assassins, who believed him dead when they left him in the street. He was not. The two assassins took asylum with the French ambassador. That Contarini had hired the attackers became known, leading to complaints from the regent of Savoy to Louis XIV; the matter became a topic of negotiation between the courts. In 1678 Stradella fled to Genoa,