From tenor in the royal band to trusted court preacher. A study of seventeenth-century professional mobility.

Giovanni Battista Jacobelli is almost a model example of an Italian emigrant seeking a life-long career and the opportunity to become rich in a distant country - the Republic of Poland. Jacobelli arrived in the Republic in 1625 as a young man of twenty-two, musically talented, seeking his place at the royal court. His efforts were successful, as he soon became a member of the royal band as a singer and instrumentalist, and later, after being ordained a priest, he found himself among the royal preachers. He gained the trust and sympathy of the Polish queens, Cecilia Renata Habsburżanka and Ludwika Maria Gonzaga.