Jerusalem, the others and us. IMLA investigations and a historiographical question

Abstract

Ignacio Jerusalem, born in Lecce in 1707 and died in Mexico in 1769, is an emblematic case of musical migrations. His biography is ideal for developing transnational studies of culture: his father was born in Naples, his grandfather in Linz and he himself moved to the New World. It is precisely the centrality of the itinerary over localism that motivates the reflections in this text. The figure of Jerusalem, along with that of other Italians who moved to America such as Rocco Cerutti (ca. 1683-1760) or Bartolomeo Massa (1719-ca. 1799), and that of others whose music is preserved in Latin American Archives - such as Giacomo Facco (1676-1753) – have been a subject of special interest for the Istituto per lo Studio della Musica Latinoamericana (IMLA) since 1980. Indeed, the IMLA was founded to study these musical migrations in times of the Ancien Regime. The text describes and analyzes the documentation about Jerusalem and his family preserved in Italy. It concludes with the suggestion of some lines of work for future research around Jerusalem. In this text, the study of this musician and his colleagues offers the opportunity to outline the evolution of Americanist musicology in Europe during the last forty years and also to reflect on the future perspectives of these studies. The need to strengthen international scientific collaboration is highlighted, overcoming localist tendencies, to prevent musicological science from responding to nationalist conceptions typical of the 19th century.