1608—Venice, Italy

English traveler Thomas Coryat attends a performance at the Scuola San Rocco that includes a 20-voice vocal choir and 24 instrumentalists: 10 trombones, 4 cornetts, 2 violas da gamba, 1 violin, and 7 organs. Clearly overwhelmed, Coryat remarks, “This feast consisted principally of Musicke, which was both vocall and instrumentall, so good, so delectable, so rare, so admirable, so super excellent, that it did even ravish and stupifie all those strangers that never heard the like” (Glixon, Honoring God 157).