credible than subsequent biographers have been willing to admit. According
to Mainwaring, Handel became almost an intimate friend of the Prince; they
often discussed music together, and the Prince lamented that Handel was
unacquainted with the music and musical life of Italy. "Handel confessed
that he could see nothing in Italian music which answered the high
character His Highness had given it. On the contrary, he thought it so very
indifferent, that the singers, he said, must be angels to recommend it."
Gian Gastone urged him to come to Italy and hear for himself, intimating
"that if he chose to return with him, no conveniences should be wanting."
Handel declined the invitation, but resolved to go to Italy as soon as he
could do so "on his own bottom."

Gian Gastone was a spendthrift and a profligate; his moral reputation was
of the worst, and he was chronically in debt. That, however, would not make
it unthinkable that after a glass of wine he should invite Handel to come
to Italy with him, but Handel may well have known enough about the Prince
even then to reply to the proposal with tactful evasiveness. From what
Mattheson says of Handel on his first arrival in Hamburg, it is quite
likely that he was contemptuous of Italian opera music, and it is equally
likely that after the success of _Almira_ his views on Italian opera
underwent a change. It is obvious that Hamburg had no further chances to
offer him, and the attraction of Italy was at that time so vivid to
all young German musicians that not one of them would have refused an
opportunity of making the journey.

The date of Handel's departure from Hamburg is unknown, nor have we the
slightest information as to his whereabouts until we hear of him at Rome in
January 1707. Chrysander's statement that he spent Christmas 1706 with his
mother at Halle is manifestly untrue. Mattheson says that he travelled to
Rome with a Herr von Binitz, but nothing is known of this gentleman. His