30 Pietro Metastasio Italian Poet and Librettist Interesting Facts

(Last Updated On: October 6, 2021)

Pietro Metastasio was an Italian poet and librettist, often regarded as the most significant writer of opera seria libretti.

Metastasio was born in Rome, where his father, Felice Trapassi, an Assisi native, had served in the papal troops’ Corsican battalion. Felice married Francesca Galasti, a Bolognese lady, and worked as a grocer on the Via dei Cappellari. Pietro was the younger of the couple’s two sons and two daughters.

Pietro is reported to have drawn audiences as a kid by delivering spontaneous poems on a specific subject. In 1709, two distinguished individuals paused to listen: Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, known for his legal and literary acuity as well as his administration of the Arcadian Academy, and Lorenzini, a noted critic. Gravina was drawn to the boy’s lyrical skill and personal appeal, and he appointed Pietro as his protégé, adopting him after only a few weeks. Felice Trapassi was delighted to provide his kid with a solid education and social introduction.

Metastasio’s popularity grew throughout the course of his forty-year career in Vienna, during which he finally outlived his own uniqueness and creative skills. He had as many as forty editions of his own books in his library. They’d been translated into French, English, German, Spanish, and contemporary Greek, among other languages.

Interesting facts about Pietro Metastasio

1. Gravina changed the boy’s name from Trapassi to Metastasio, intending for his adoptive son to follow in his footsteps as a judge. As a result, he forced the child to study Latin and law.

2. Gravina, who was in Calabria on business, presented Metastasio in literary circles in Naples before entrusting him to his cousin Gregorio Caroprese at Scaléa.

3. Metastasio quickly found himself competing with some of Italy’s most well-known improvisatori. Pietro’s health suffered as a result of his long days of study and evenings spent composing poetry.

4. Metastasio did not have much social success in Vienna.

5. His plebeian origins kept him out of aristocratic society. He enjoyed the closeness of the Countess Althann, sister-in-law of his previous patroness, Princess Belmonte Pignatelli, to make up for his relative failure.

6. Gravina, who was in Calabria on business, presented Metastasio in literary circles in Naples before entrusting him to his cousin Gregorio Caroprese at Scaléa.

7. Metastasio’s health was restored by the fresh rural air and the peace of the southern beach.

8. Gravina resolved that he would never improvise again, but that he would save it for nobler endeavors, such as competing with the best poets after completing his studies.

9. Metastasio’s relationship with her grew so deep that it was assumed they had secretly married.

10. He gave his whole wealth of 130,000 florins to Nicolo Martinez’s six children.

11. Metastasio was born in Rome, where his father, Felice Trapassi, an Assisi native, had served in the papal troops’ Corsican battalion.

12. Metastasio complied with his client’s requests. He translated the Iliad into octave stanzas when he was twelve years old, and two years later he produced a Senecan tragedy based on a theme from Gian Giorgio Trissino’s Italia liberata, Gravina’s favorite epic.

13. Felice married Francesca Galasti, a Bolognese lady, and worked as a grocer on the Via dei Cappellari.

14. He performed an elegy to his patron at an Arcadian Academy assembly before settling down to enjoy his fortune.

15. Metastasio moved to Vienna in the early summer of 1730, to an apartment in the so-called “Michaelerhaus.”

16. As a result, he forced the child to study Latin and law.

17. Simultaneously, he developed his literary abilities and showed the young genius both at his home and among the Roman coteries.

18. Pietro was the younger of the couple’s two sons and two daughters.

19. Gravina was drawn to the boy’s lyrical skill and personal appeal, and he appointed Pietro as his protégé, adopting him after only a few weeks.

20. Felice Trapassi was delighted to provide his kid with a solid education and social introduction.

21. Gravina changed the boy’s name from Trapassi to Metastasio, intending for his adoptive son to follow in his footsteps as a judge.

22. He had lost her spouse and had served as the Emperor’s top favorite for a time.

23. Giustino was published in 1713, and Metastasio assured his publisher forty-two years later that he would gladly hide this juvenilia.

24. Caroprese died in 1714, leaving Gravina as his successor; Gravina died in 1718.

25. Metastasio got 15,000 scudi from his father.

26. Pietro is reported to have drawn audiences as a kid by delivering spontaneous poems on a specific subject.

27. In 1709, two distinguished individuals paused to listen: Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, known for his legal and literary acuity as well as his administration of the Arcadian Academy, and Lorenzini, a noted critic.

28. Metastasio complied with his client’s requests. He translated the Iliad into octave stanzas when he was twelve years old, and two years later he produced a Senecan tragedy based on a theme from Gian Giorgio Trissino’s Italia liberata, Gravina’s favorite epic. Giustino was published in 1713, and Metastasio assured his publisher forty-two years later that he would gladly hide this juvenilia.

29. When Countess Althann died in 1755, Metastasio’s social life was confined to gatherings around him at the bourgeois home of his friend Nicolo Martinez, the papal Nuncio’s secretary in Vienna.

30. He died on April 12th, leaving his whole wealth of 130,000 florins to Nicolo Martinez’s six children. He’d managed to outlive all of his Italian family.

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30 Pietro Metastasio Italian Poet and Librettist Interesting Facts

Interesting facts about Pietro Metastasio

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