Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/184

172 little children dying of cold and hunger. Children of all nations were admitted, from seven to eleven years of age. There were a hundred of them. They wore a red cassock and sky-blue cymar. In this college— and we need say no more—Pergolesi was trained.

2. The Collegio di San Onofrio a Capuana, founded about 1600, by the friars of San Onofrio for orphans of Capua and the country round about. The number of scholars varied from ninety to a hundred and fifty. They wore a white cassock and grey cymar.

3. The Collegio de Santa Maria di Loreto, founded in 1537 by a protonotary apostolic of Spanish nationality, Giovanni di Tappia, "to receive the sons of the poorest citizens and educate them in religion and the fine arts." This very large college contained at first as many as eight hundred children, boys and girls. Then, about the middle of the eighteenth century, it ceased receiving girls and began to teach music exclusively. When Burney visited it there were two hundred children. They wore a white cassock and cymar.

4. The Collegio de la Pietà de Turchini, founded at the end of the sixteenth century by a confraternity which accepted the poor children of the quarter. In the middle of the eighteenth century there were a hundred pupils. They wore a blue cassock and cymar. The most celebrated Neapolitan composers were professors in this college. Francesco Provenzale was one of the first masters in this college.

Each of these conservatoires had two head-masters: one to correct compositions, the other to teach singing. These were also assistant masters (maestri scolari) for each instrument. The children,