CONSERVATORY (Ital. Conservator™, Fr. Conservatoire, Ger. Conservatoriurn), a name applied first in Italy, and afterwards throughout the Continent, to institutions for training in music and for preserving the true theory and practice of the art. They arose out of the necessity of providing trained choristers for the service of the church, and were generally maintained upon some charitable foundation which provided board in addition to a musical education for orphans and the children of poor parents, other pupils being occasionally taken on payment of fees. When fully equipped, each conservatorio had two maestri or principals, one for composition and one for singing, besides professors for the various instruments. Though St Ambrose and Pope Leo I., in the 4th and 5th centuries respectively, are sometimes named in connection with the subject, the historic continuity of the conservatoire in its modern sense cannot be traced farther back than the 16th century. The first to which a definite date can be assigned is the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loretto, at Naples, founded by Giovanni di Tappia in 1537. Three other similar schools were afterwards established in the city, of which the Conservatorio di Sant’ Onofrio deserves special mention on account of the fame of its teachers, such as Alessandro Scarlatti, Leo, Durante, and Porpora. There were thus for a considerable time four flourishing conservatories in Naples. Two of them, however, ceased to exist in the course of last century, and on the French occupation of the city the other two were united by Murat in a new instituti on under the title Real Collegio di Musica, which admitted pupils of both sexes, the earlier conservatorios having been exclusively for boys. In Venice, on the other hand, there were from an ...