Arcangelo Corelli was born in Fusignano, Italy, on 17 February 1653, the youngest child of a wealthy landowner. His musical studies took him first to the local towns of Faenza and Lugo, and then, when he was about thirteen, to the nearby city of Bologna, one of the most important musical centres of the time. Corelli lived in Bologna, studying the violin and composition with local musicians, until he was about twenty when he seems to have settled in Rome. He is first recorded there in 1675 as a junior member of a Lenten oratorio orchestra. Corelli’s progress in Roman musical society was rapid. By 1679 he was playing a prominent role in ad hoc church orchestras, and had entered the service of the most glamorous patron of the time, the exiled Queen Christina of Sweden. His first published collection, his Opus 1 trio sonatas, was dedicated to Christina.