Mazarin also played an important role in bringing Italian music to Paris. Before Mazarin, Italian opera was very little known or appreciated in Paris. Louis XIII, Catherine de Medici and Marie de Medici had all brought Italian musicians to Paris, but Mazarin did it more systematically and on a much larger scale. After his arrival as a minister in 1643, he invited the famous soprano Leonora Baroni and the castrato Atto Melani. Melani doubled as a diplomat; Mazarin sent him on several secret missions to other courts in Europe.