ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the terms immersion and atmosphere on a theoretical level – the first as theoretically conceptualised by various approaches from media and art studies. It focuses on the concrete historical experiential situation of the Miserere in the Sistene Chapel and its ceremonial context on Good Friday from the perspective of Protestant travellers in Rome. Musical immersion can analogously be described as the experience of being “immersed” in music. Music was an ideal candidate for the interest in observing the sentiments enfolding between things and souls at the time. The chapter discusses how the concepts of immersion and atmosphere can help address the experiential situations and how they reflect the specific phenomenology and discursive embeddedness of the experiences. Unlike the classical Grand Tour, “sentimental journeys” to Italy between 1780 and 1810 were less motivated by an aspiration for knowledge or education, but rather aimed for strong sensual impressions.
