Biography
Agostino Steffani was born on 25 July 1654 in Castelfranco Veneto near Padua and came to the Munich court in 1667 as a choirboy after the Bavarian elector Ferdinand Maria discovered his talent. Following further studies in Rome, where he also trained in theology, he became director of the Munich court music in 1681 and Hanover's Kapellmeister in 1688, composing several operas there for the newly built theatre in the Leine Palace through the 1690s. Alongside his musical career, Steffani served the House of Hanover as a diplomat, including as envoy in Brussels, and was made titular bishop of Spiga in 1706. From 1709 to 1723 he acted as apostolic vicar for Upper and Lower Saxony, based in Hanover, where he supported the building of the region's first Catholic church since the Reformation. He died on 12 February 1728 in Frankfurt am Main.
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