1658—Venice, Italy

Johann Rosenmüller, an unfrocked priest and predecessor of J.S. Bach’s at the St. Thomas School in Leipzig, becomes a trombonist in the cappela musicale of St. Mark’s cathedral. Rosenmüller had fled from Leipzig a few years earlier (1655) after escaping imprisonment for offenses of pederasty. Later, also in 1658, he becomes the first foreigner to be hired as a teacher (maestro) at Venice’s Ospedale della Pieta, where he eventually assumes the role of music director. Near the end of his life, he returns to Germany to work as Kapellmeister at the Wolfenbüttel court (Baldauf-Berdes 188; Rose, The Musician in Literature 54).