MUSICAL ENSEMBLES IN THE LIBRI AMICORUM OF HANS HOCH DATED ROME, 1618-1656.

The Cisalpine cities with their renowned universities were favorite destinations for the young ultramontani both in the sixteenth century during the peregrinatio academica and in the following centuries during the Kavalierstour and Grand Tour phenomenon: The presence of the ultramontani in Italy is widely attested in the libri amicorum, travel notebooks that young people carried with them to collect the dedications of friends, teachers and prominent figures they met. The four voluminous and elegant libri amicorum of Hans Hoch, kept at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, fondo Chigi, G.IV.111– G.IV.114, contain 785 dedications by various persons, collected in Rome between 1618 and 1656. They document the presence of transalpine people in Rome in the first half of the seventeenth century and they are an essential prosopographical source for tracing the circulation of young elites in the city. There had been little biographical information on Hans Hoch (Giovanni Alto; 1577–1660), who is often confused with Hans Gros, as both shared the name Hans, came from Lucerne, worked as Swiss guards for the pope, knew the Roman antiquities and worked as guides for the visitors arriving in the city from beyond the Alps. On the basis of the entries they entered in some libri amicorum, their distinct identities are now clearly confirmed. Hoch’s libri amicorum include four images of unspecified urban settings with musicians, which document seventeenth-century performances of professional musicians hired by private individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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