These two famous aphorisms from major players in réunions of national styles clearly affirm the centrality of cosmopolitanism in musical developments of the first half of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, neither of these musicians, nor their French and Italian compatriots, wrote at great length about what they meant by “appropriate judgement” and “esteem” in music, that is, about the principles by which various style characteristics were valued and selected. Likewise, the grand aesthetic debates over French and Italian opera largely did not involve musicians, nor did they necessarily reflect the understanding of the composers and others in contexts involved in creating a réunion des goûts. Thanks to a particularly detailed network of documents, it is possible to gain a clearer understanding not only of these views but also their historical and cultural roots. The travels of the prince de Vaudémont, Montéclair and their compatriots in Milan, Paris and elsewhere, present an unusually vibrant – if complex – histoire croisée of early eighteenth-century Franco-Italian exchanges. Travel by musicians and dancers exposed them to a reality of practice that went beyond notated music and choreographies, or written descriptions. In the case of d’Averara, Montéclair, Philbois and Des Noyers, it involved them directly in collaborations with others trained in foreign idioms in a way that required negotiation and mutual understanding. Although no records of these negotiations survive, their products clearly reflect at least some of the problems these figures encountered and the solutions they deployed.

This histoire croisée reinforces the realization that the influence of travel did not flow in only one direction but affected both travelers and those whom they encountered on their travels. At the same time, these encounters reveal that the influence of travel depended on the prior experience of one another’s cultures: pre-existing connections and commonalities often shaped cultural interactions in fundamental ways. This is particularly evident in the Italian adoption of particular French genres used to accompany social dancing that employed musical elements familiar to Italians, for example, regular phrasing.