Baroque Genealogy Without Direct Descent

Girolamo Frescobaldi died in Rome in 1643. Modern chronologies place Johann von Kerll’s Roman study in 1648 or 1649, when he went to Giacomo Carissimi. Those dates create the first problem in a lineage that appears to connect eight Baroque musicians:

Graph path: a route through a set of recorded relationships. It does not require every teaching relationship to point in the direction in which the route travels. In this case, several steps run from pupil to teacher, and several others depend on old traditions that lack direct documentary support.

Girolamo Frescobaldi and Johann von Kerll

MusicLineage records Girolamo Frescobaldi as a teacher of Johann von Kerll. Later reference works also preserve this claim, sometimes describing the relationship as probable and sometimes stating it without qualification.

The documents examined for the research report do not confirm it. No letter, payment record or contemporary account was found showing Johann von Kerll taking lessons from Girolamo Frescobaldi. The chronology also presents a difficulty: Girolamo Frescobaldi died five or six years before Johann von Kerll’s known period of Roman study.

One modern dictionary entry says that Johann von Kerll was sent to Giacomo Carissimi and “probably” Girolamo Frescobaldi. Yet the same database’s relationship field names Giacomo Carissimi and Giovanni Valentini as his teachers, omitting Girolamo Frescobaldi. Influence through repertory or another musician remains possible, but it cannot establish formal study.

Giacomo Carissimi Taught Johann von Kerll

The route next travels from Johann von Kerll to Giacomo Carissimi, but the recorded teaching direction is Giacomo Carissimi → Johann von Kerll.

Johann Gottfried Walther’s Musicalisches Lexicon, published in 1732, says that Johann von Kerll was sent to Rome to receive further instruction from Giacomo Carissimi. Modern scholarship places that journey in 1648 or 1649. The wording indicates a planned course of study rather than a later claim of stylistic influence.

No testimony written during Johann von Kerll’s Roman stay was found. Walther published his account after both men had died, but it remains the clearest early statement about the purpose of the journey. Johann von Kerll later became a chapel master in Munich in 1656.

The Carissimi–Scarlatti Tradition

MusicLineage also records Giacomo Carissimi as a teacher of Alessandro Scarlatti. This relationship has appeared repeatedly in music histories, but modern Italian biographical scholarship reports that no documents confirm an apprenticeship.

The dates permit only a narrow window. Giacomo Carissimi died in Rome in 1674, when Alessandro Scarlatti, born in Palermo in 1660, was still an adolescent. A meeting was chronologically possible, but no lesson record or contemporary statement has been found.

The same modern account places Alessandro Scarlatti’s likely Roman education around Bernardo Pasquini, Antonio Foggia and Pietro Simone Agostini. The connection with Giacomo Carissimi therefore remains a historical teaching tradition preserved in the record rather than a documented apprenticeship.

Alessandro Scarlatti and Domenico Scarlatti

The next relationship has firmer foundations. Alessandro Scarlatti taught Domenico Scarlatti, his son, and their professional lives overlapped directly.

In 1701, the fifteen-year-old Domenico Scarlatti entered the Neapolitan royal chapel as an organist and composer. Alessandro Scarlatti was already its maestro di cappella, the musician responsible for directing the chapel’s music. No timetable of private lessons survives, but the evidence shows family training alongside professional supervision.

Alessandro Scarlatti also managed parts of Domenico Scarlatti’s early career. He took him to Florence, arranged introductions and sent him toward Venice in 1705. Here the path follows the teaching relationship in its recorded direction.

Francesco Gasparini and the Venetian Question

The route then moves from Domenico Scarlatti to Francesco Gasparini, although the teaching relationship is Francesco Gasparini → Domenico Scarlatti.

Alessandro Scarlatti’s correspondence shows that Domenico Scarlatti travelled toward Venice in 1705. It does not prove that he reached the city or studied there. Research into Venetian records has found no local archival document confirming his presence.

Ralph Kirkpatrick later reconstructed a possible association between Francesco Gasparini and Domenico Scarlatti. He described something closer to practical apprenticeship and criticism than elementary lessons, but marked his account with terms such as “likely” and “possible.” Modern Italian biographical scholarship states directly that there is no evidence Domenico Scarlatti studied with Francesco Gasparini.

The recorded teaching relationship is therefore clear in direction, but its documentary basis remains uncertain. The available evidence supports a planned Venetian journey and the possibility of contact, not a demonstrable course of lessons.

Antonio Lotti and the Gasparini Name

MusicLineage records Antonio Lotti as a teacher of Francesco Gasparini. The graph path crosses this connection backwards, moving from Francesco Gasparini to Antonio Lotti.

No independent document confirming lessons between them was found. The surname Gasparini creates an additional problem because Venetian records and older dictionaries did not always include first names. This caused later writers to confuse members of the family.

An older claim identified Michelangelo Gasparini as a pupil of Antonio Lotti, but modern biographical research rejects it and assigns Michelangelo Gasparini’s training to Giovanni Legrenzi. That correction does not disprove the separate recorded relationship between Antonio Lotti and Francesco Gasparini. It does mean that an unnamed “Gasparini” described as Antonio Lotti’s pupil cannot automatically be identified as Francesco Gasparini.

Giovanni Legrenzi Taught Antonio Lotti

The final step again runs from pupil to teacher. The actual teaching direction is Giovanni Legrenzi → Antonio Lotti.

Antonio Lotti began studying with Giovanni Legrenzi in 1683, when he was sixteen. Later correspondence gives the relationship stronger support than institutional overlap alone could provide.

Antonio Lotti called Giovanni Legrenzi his “master.”

Michelangelo Gasparini also remembered meeting Antonio Lotti at Giovanni Legrenzi’s home in 1686, referring to Legrenzi as “our Master.” These retrospective statements confirm who taught whom, even though no tuition contract or payment register has been found.

San Marco records trace Antonio Lotti’s employment from singer to organist, but appointments do not prove private instruction. The personal testimony supplies the evidence for the teaching relationship.

The least settled point may be the identity behind old references to a Gasparini pupil. Until a document supplies a first name, those references cannot securely confirm Antonio Lotti’s recorded teaching relationship with Francesco Gasparini or be transferred to Michelangelo Gasparini.