Note 3 — THE STANDARD CANTATAS.

Geminiani used to relate that Franceschelli, a celebrated performer on the violoncello at the beginning of this century, accompanied one of these cantatas at Rome so admirably, while Scarlatti was at the harpsichord, that the company, being good Catholics, and living in a country where miraculous powers have not yet ceased, were firmly persuaded it was not Franceschelli who had played the violoncello, but an angel that had descended and assumed his shape.—Burney’s History, vol. iv. p. 169 (1789).