an Italian, Agostino Steffani, who was not only a musician but priest and
diplomatist as well. Born at Castelfranco in 1654, he was taken as a boy
to Munich, where he studied music, and, in 1680 entered the priesthood; he
produced several operas there, and about 1689 became Kapellmeister to the
court of Hanover. Here he was employed on important diplomatic business;
Pope Innocent XI made him titular Bishop of Spiga in the West Indies,
and in 1698 he was Ambassador at Brussels. In 1709 he became the Pope's
representative for North Germany, and it was doubtless owing to his heavy
ecclesiastical duties that he resigned his musical post in favour of
Handel, although Hanover remained his chief place of residence until his
death in 1728. He was in Rome in 1708 and 1709, and it has been suggested
that he made Handel's acquaintance there, but this hardly seems consistent
with Handel's own statement, recorded by Hawkins in his _History of Music_:
"When I first arrived at Hanover I was a young man under twenty; I was
acquainted with the merits of Steffani and he had heard of me. I understood
somewhat of music, and could play pretty well on the organ; he received me
with great kindness, and took an early opportunity to introduce me to the
Princess Sophia and the Elector's son, giving them to understand that I
was what he was pleased to call a virtuoso in music; he obliged me with
instructions for my conduct and behaviour during my residence at Hanover;
and being called from the city to attend to matters of a public concern,
he left me in possession of that favour and patronage which himself had
enjoyed for a series of years." These statements of Handel seem, in fact,
to point to his having visited Hanover before he went to Italy, possibly
before he went to Hamburg, or, more probably, during the course of his
Hamburg period, in which case one might conclude that the Electress Sophia
had defrayed the cost of Handel's Italian journey. Even if Handel made
a mistake as to his age, he clearly implies that his first meeting with
Steffani took place in Hanover.