Italian Source-Studies and Handel

Abstract THE extent to which the appraisal of Handel manuscripts has aspects in common with the present writer’s field—the investigation of Italian manuscript repertories, particularly those of Vivaldi’s music—has not yet been determined. In principle, at least, studies in these two areas are similar and should therefore prove to be complementary and of assistance to each other, especially since Handel was intensely active in Italy for a short period. Some mutually useful evidence may emerge; certain Vivaldi and Handel documents might employ, for instance, the same Venetian paper-types, characterized by the generic watermark of three crescents (tre mezze lune), of the kind Dr Watanabe discusses elsewhere in this volume, i or similarly exhibit the handwriting of a particular Roman copyist. The existence of any connections of this kind which indicate the contemporaneity of particular Handel and Vivaldi sources seems doubtful, however, simply because the time when most Italian Handel manuscripts are likely to have been created is distinctly earlier than the period from around 1713 to which virtually all Vivaldi manuscripts belong.