[90] Later on Handel said after he had been to Italy that he never had imagined that Italian music, which appears so ordinary and empty on paper, could make such a good effect in the theatre itself.
[91] Mr. R. A. Streatfeild believes that he even stayed in Florence until October, 1706, for the Prince Gastone dei Medici, who ought to have presented him to the Grand Duke, left Florence in November, 1706. He also places in this first sojourn in Florence the production of Handel’s Roderigo, of which all precise records in the archives of the Medicis and the papers of the time are lost. I am more inclined to follow the traditional opinion that Roderigo dates from Handel’s second stay in Florence, when he commenced to work in the Italian language and style.
[92] Bartolommeo Christofori, inventor of the pianoforte, made several very interesting instruments for him.
[93] April 2, 1706.
[94] April 23, 1707. See Edward Dent: Alessandro Scarlatti.
[95] Volume LI of the Complete Works. It was pretended at the time that this Lucretia was written by one Lucretia, a singer at the court of Tuscany, who showed Handel for the first time the great beauty of the Italian song—and of the Italians.
[96] The whole of Europe in the commencement of the eighteenth century had passed through a vogue of Pietism. Historians have scarcely paid sufficient attention to local influences. It was thus that they attributed the reawakening of the religious spirit in France entirely to the influence of Louis XIV. Analogous phenomena were produced in Italy, in Germany, and in England, at the same time. There were great moral forces awakening, which, one cannot exactly say why, suddenly broke out over the whole of the civilized world like a stroke of fever.
[97] A Dixit Dominus is dated April 4, 1707; a Laudate Pueri, July 8, 1707.
[98] A letter from Annibale Merlini to Ferdinando dei Medici, recently published by Mr. Streatfeild, says that on September 24, 1707, the famous Saxon (Il Sassone famoso), as Handel was already called, was still enchanting hearers in the musical evenings at Rome.
[99] Both Mr. Ademollo, in an article in the Nuova Antologia, July 16, 1889, and Mr. Streatfeild, have established the true name of the chief singer in Roderigo. Thus the romantic story believed ever since Chrysander of Handel’s love for the famous Vittoria Tesi has been destroyed. She was only seven years old in 1707, and did not come out until 1716.