Abstract
Surprisingly, Anna Frank-van Westrienen does not mention this source in her dissertation De Groote Tour.' Hitherto it appears to have been mentioned in secondary literature only by Roland de Leeuw, who cites a few significant passages from it that illustrate the custom of spitting and talking aloud in Italian theatres.2 Alensoon's diary must be one of the most informative Dutch travel journals touching on musical life in Italy in the first half of the eighteenth century, and it deserves to be ranked with the far better-known accounts of Charles de Brosses and Johann Friedrich Armand von Uffenbach.3 The author of these pages, numbering almost 500, was the Leiden lawyer Jan Alensoon (1683-1769), son of the merchant Caspar Alensoon (1657-1714). The Alensoons were one of the few new families to succeed during the eighteenth century in gaining access to the vroedschap (city council), which had become more or less barred to newcomers in 1702, when the notorious contract of correspondence between the older families was drawn Up.4 Jan's younger brother Abraham (16871758), in particular, embodied the family's short-lived membership of the Leiden patriciate, acting as one of the four (annually elected) burgomasters in 1742, 1745, 1751 and 1754. Despite this and other high political offices, Abraham left at his death the comparatively small sum of 16,300 guilders, hardly impressive when compared with the 585,975 guilders left by Cornelis van Tol or the 462,606 guilders bequeathed by Pieter de la Court Allardszn.5 Jan seems to have harboured few of Abraham's ambitions. He never became a member of the vroedschap and contented himself with the politically irrelevant but
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call