ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses seventeenth-century work the oratorio Saint John, the Baptist by Alessandro Stradella. It looks into early-modern example that takes into account the rising modern dilemma of the ethics of escapism: the oratorio San Giovanni Battista, written by Alessandro Stradella for the feast of St. John celebrated at the Roman church of Saint Crucifix. The chapter refers to the work of cultural theorist Helmut Lethen to explain the crucial difference between the culture of Vienna and Weimar. The libretto by Ansaldo Ansaldi presents the well-known New Testament story of John the Baptist who, in trying to turn Herod from worldly pleasures, arouses the anger of his wife, which results in John's decapitation. Peter N. Miller relates the Italian fashion of neostoicism to political and economical crises, explaining neostoic withdrawal from public life as a 'remedy for corrupt politics'. It was the collapse of republican Italy that discredited Ciceronian political philosophy.
