Editing George Frideric Handel (section)

===After the death of Handel's father ===

Handel's father died on 11 February 1697.<ref>{{harvnb|Schoelcher|1857|p=6}}; {{harvnb|Deutsch|1955|pp=5–6}} (inscription on Georg Händel's tombstone).</ref> It was German custom for friends and family to compose funeral odes for a substantial burgher like Georg,{{sfn|Lang|1966|p=19}} and young Handel discharged his duty with a poem dated 18 February and signed with his name and (in deference to his father's wishes) "dedicated to the liberal arts."<ref>{{harvnb|Deutsch|1955|pp=6–8}} (containing the poem and English translation).</ref> At the time Handel was studying either at Halle's Lutheran Gymnasium or the Latin School.{{sfn|Lang|1966|p=19}}

Mainwaring has Handel travelling to Berlin the next year, 1698.{{sfn|Mainwaring|1760|p=18}} The problem with Mainwaring as an authority for this date, however, is that he tells of how Handel's father communicated with the "king"{{efn|There was no "king" in Berlin until 18 January 1701 when Frederick III, the Elector of Brandenburg, became [[Frederick I of Prussia|Frederick I]], the first [[King in Prussia]].{{sfn|Landon|1984|p=30 n.5}}}} during Handel's stay, declining the Court's offer to send Handel to Italy on a stipend{{sfn|Mainwaring|1760|pp=24–25}} and that his father died "after his return from Berlin."{{sfn|Mainwaring|1760|p=29}} But since Georg Händel died in 1697, either the date of the trip or Mainwaring's statements about Handel's father must be in error. Early biographers solved the problem by making the year of the trip 1696, then noting that at the age of 11, Handel would need a guardian, so they have Handel's father or a friend of the family accompany him, all the while puzzling over why the elder Handel, who wanted Handel to become a lawyer, would spend the sum to lead his son further into the temptation of music as a career.{{sfn|Lang|1966|p=166}} Schoelcher for example has Handel travelling to Berlin at 11, meeting both [[Giovanni Bononcini|Bononcini]] and [[Attilio Ariosti]] in Berlin and then returning at the direction of his father.{{sfn|Schoelcher|1857|pp=6–7}} But Ariosti was not in Berlin before the death of Handel's father,{{sfn|Landon|1984|p=31 n.8}} and Handel could not have met Bononcini in Berlin before 1702.{{sfn|Landon|1984|p=31 n.7}} Modern biographers either accept the year as 1698, since most reliable older authorities agree with it,{{efn|Among the careful authorities who accepted the trip taking place in 1698 were Handel's friend [[Johann Mattheson]]{{sfn|Lang|1966|p=166}} and Burney.{{sfn|Schoelcher|1857|p=6}}}} and discount what Mainwaring says about what took place during the trip or assume that Mainwaring conflated two or more visits to Berlin, as he did with Handel's later trips to Venice.{{sfn|Landon|1984|pp=31 n.7 & 53}}