Mantua, Dec 1611 -  Rome, 6 April 1670

Singer and instrumentalist, daughter of Adriana Baroni; she was sometimes known as ‘L’Adrianella’ or ‘L’Adrianetta’.
She spent her childhood at the Gonzaga court at Mantua, where her mother was a leading singer, and was named after the late Duchess of Mantua. She presumably began her musical training with her mother.
Gifted with a splendid voice, she specialized as a singer, soon achieved great fame and put even her mother in the shade.
She was admired not only for the beauty, artistry and style of her singing but also for her refined manners.
She was able to speak several languages and wrote verse as well as music.
No compositions attributed to her are known, but the French viol player André Maugars, who knew her in Rome, stated unequivocally that she composed.
When still very young she accompanied her mother on her musical journeys, together with her sister Caterina Baroni.
At the age of only 16 she received her first enthusiastic acclaim in the aristocratic circles of Naples, where the family resided from 1624 to 1633. In spring 1630, again with her mother, she appeared at Genoa and immediately afterwards at Florence.
She was everywhere the object of admiration and gallantries, as is proved by the numerous poems addressed to her by prominent poets such as Fulvio Testi and Francesco Bracciolini, and by influential nobles such as Cardinals Annibale Bentivoglio and Giulio Rospigliosi, and Prince Camillo Colonna, protector of the Accademia degli Umoristi; these were published as Applausi poetici alle glorie della Signora Leonora Baroni (ed. F. Ronconi, Bracciano, 1639, 2/1641).
After her family had moved to Rome in 1633, Leonora was declared superior to all other Italian chamber singers of the age.
She enjoyed one success after another in the musical entertainments held at her home, accompanying herself on theorbo or viol (both of which she played perfectly according to Maugars) or performing alongside her mother (playing the lira) and sister (playing the harp).
Milton heard and admired her and in 1639 paid homage to her in three Latin epigrams (Ad Leonoram Romae canentem).
Her voice, Maugars noted, was ‘of a high compass’, and ‘she mellows it or swells it easily’.
On her countenance, he added: "Her [vocal] leaps and her sighs are not at all lascivious, her glances have nothing of lewdness and her gestures have the correctness of a proper young lady.
Sometimes, in passing from one note to another, she lets the intervals of the enharmonic and chromatic genera sound with such skill and charm that no one remains unmoved by this beautiful and difficult type of singing."
The only female member of the Accademia degli Umoristi, she frequently attended salons at the Palazzo Barberini, where she was always enthusiastically received in the circle around Cardinal Antonio Barberini.
It was there that she met Cardinal Francesco Barberini’s secretary, GiulioCesare Castellani, whom she married on 27 May 1640.
In February 1644, through the mediation of Cardinal Mazarin (who had known her in Rome and was to a great extent indebted to her for the advantageous favour of Cardinal Antonio Barberini), Leonora Baroni was offered by the Queen Regent of France, Anne of Austria, a favourable contract inviting her and her husband to the French court.
This she accepted.
At first she was not admired in Paris, perhaps because the Italian style of singing did not appeal to French taste.
That she nevertheless achieved a measure of success was largely due to the queen regent’s benevolent protection.
Even so, her stay in Paris was clouded by envy and professional jealousy.
She therefore departed for Italy on 10 April 1645, taking with her several precious jewels bestowed on her by the queen regent, who also granted her a large pension for life.
She might later have returned to France had not the state of her health prevented it.
In Rome she resumed her active life in the aristocratic society that frequented the salons held at her home.
There, even after her husband’s death on 4 January 1662, she continued to perform, accompanying herself on the lute or theorbo.
She maintained her notable artistic reputation, particularly after the election of Pope Clement IX, who as Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi had once dedicated one of his best sonnets to her; she enjoyed to the end of her life the patronage and affectionate friendship of the Rospigliosi family.
She was buried with her husband in S Maria della Scala. 

Bibliography:

Grove Music Online: www.oxfordmusiconline.com

Fabio Della Cornia’s portrait of Leonora Baroni (1600-1643)