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Rh The Hanover people began to murmur. The only means they could find of keeping their Prince at home with them was to build a magnificent opera house where spectacles and fêtes resembling those in Venice could be given. The idea was good. Ernest Augustus warmly took up the scheme for his opera house, which, built and decorated by the Italians between 1687 and 1690, was the most beautiful in all Germany. For this opera house Steffani was engaged as Kapellmeister. Agostina Steffani is one of the most curious figures in history. Born in 1653 at Castelfranco, near Venice, of a poor family, after being a choir-boy at St. Mark's, he was taken in 1667 to Munich by the Count of Tattenbach, who had been the pupil of Ercole Bernabei, a master brought up in the purest Roman style. At the same time he had been given a very complete education in literature, science, and theology, for he was destined for the priesthood, and