On today’s date in 2001, the release of a CD of Vivaldi’s oratorio “Juditha Triumphans” launched a very ambitious project – to record nearly 450 works of the famous Italian Baroque composer that exist as manuscript scores in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin, Italy.

It’s the largest collection of manuscript scores by any 18th century composer in existence, and includes many Vivaldi works unperformed since his lifetime.

Susan Orlando, the director of the recording project, explained how that came to be: “When Vivaldi died in Vienna in 1741 he had debts, so the authorities immediately sealed off his home. We have the inventory that they made. It included no musical manuscripts, but there was a big, empty chest. It seems Vivaldi’s brother had got hold of the music and sold it off.”

Back then, Vivaldi’s scores ended up with various wealthy collectors, but in 1930 the scattered music was consolidated and bequeathed to the library in Turin.

The French label Naïve has released over 60 Vivaldi Edition CDs so far, including 17 Vivaldi operas. More than a dozen additional titles are planned for release by 2028, the year that will mark the 350th anniversary of Vivaldi’s birth.