[109] At one meeting of the Arcadia in April, 1706, Alessandro Scarlatti seated himself at the keyboard, whilst the poet Zappi improvised a poem. Hardly had Zappi finished reciting the last verse than Scarlatti improvised music on the verses--similarly at Ottoboni's house Handel improvised many secular cantatas whilst the Cardinal Panfili improvised the verses. It is related that one of these poems constituted a Dithyrambic eulogy, and that Handel, unperturbed, amused himself by setting it to music, and doubtless singing it. [110] The manuscript of _The Resurrection_ bears this superscription: April 11, 1708, _La Festa de Pasque dal Marche Ruspoli_ (The Easter Festival at the Marquis Ruspoli's). [111] They occupy four volumes in the great Breitkopf edition--two volumes of cantatas, of solo cantatas, with single bass for clavier, and two volumes of cantatas _Con stromenti_, of which certain are serenatas for two or three parts. [112] The _Armida abbandonata_. The copy, very carefully penned in the writing of Bach, is now lodged in the house of Breitkopf. [113] It is related that at one of the Ottoboni evenings there was a contest on the clavier and on the organ between Domenico Scarlatti and Handel. The result was undecided on the clavier, but for the organ Scarlatti himself was the first to declare Handel the victor. After that, whenever Scarlatti spoke of him he always made the sign of the Cross. [114] Scarlatti was attached to the Royal Chapel of Naples as principal Organist in December, 1708. Then he was reinstated in this post in January, 1709, and in the course of the same year he was nominated master of the Conservatoire of _Poveri di Gesù Cristo_. [115] All his life one of his chief hobbies--as with Corelli and Hasse--was to visit picture galleries. It is necessary to note this visual intelligence with the great German and Italian musicians of this period, since one does not find it with those of the end of the eighteenth century. [116] One of his cantatas is preserved, _Cantata spagnola a voce sola a chitarra_ (Spanish Cantata for solo voice and guitar, published in the second volume of Italian cantatas _Con stromenti_), and seven French songs in the style of Lully, with accompaniment of Figured Bass for the clavier. One copy of these songs is found in the Conservatoire Library, Paris (Fonds Schoelcher). [117] One of them forms the inspiration for the Pastoral Symphony of _The Messiah_. Handel also acquired in Italy his taste for the Siciliano, which became the rage in Naples, and which he used, after _Agrippina_, in nearly all his operas, and even in his oratorios. [118] The _Acis and Galatea_ of 1708 has no relation to the one of 1720, but in taking up the later work in 1732 Handel made a rearrangement of his Italian serenade, and gave it in London, mingling with it the English airs of his other _Acis_.