ABSTRACT
During the late seventeenth century, from the rank-and-file instrumentalist to the maestro di cappella, nearly every kind of musician composed sonatas and dances. The most enterprising among instrumentalist-composers in cobbling together a living out of diverse activities was Giovanni Battista Vitali, composer, bass violinist, maestro di cappella, and music printer. Musicians in search of employment in this milieu thus looked to the nobles in charge and made their petitions in the ornate and effusive epistolary style of the period, often intensifying the tone of their petition with a mention of hardships endured. Ercole Gaibara excepted, most musicians were concerned over problems of income. Even relatively prominent composers suffered distressing financial hardship. Composers were paid a flat fee, if anything, when they submitted their works to the presses, and the profits from reprinted editions usually accrued to the publisher only.
