Marquis Francesco Maria Ruspoli was the best Maecenas Georg Friedrich Handel could wish for during his stay in Rome: luxurious accommodation in the former family palace, composition commissions galore and introductions to influential people. Ruspoli also laid a solid foundation for Handel’s future opera career by providing him with a young famous singer, Margarita Durastanti. In papal Rome, where operas where forbidden and female sopranos and open stages were taboo, that was an extraordinary opportunity. Therefore Handel had all the space he needed to experiment with writing for a female voice and to perfect his Italian opera idiom. We even find two sopranos in the cantate ‘Aminta e Fillide’, which made the romantic struggle between the amorous shepherd Aminta and the reluctant nymph Phyllis all the more erotic for Ruspoli and his private party of friends. Instrumental Baroque classics by Corelli and Telemann are also on the list, alongside Muffat, the man that thanks to Italian and French influences breathed life into German music in the 17th century.