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Italian poet and librettist (1698–1782)

Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi (3 January 1698 – 12 April 1782), better known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio (Italian pronunciation:[ˈpjɛːtrometaˈstaːzjo]), was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.

Early life

Metastasio was born in Rome, where his father, Felice Trapassi, a native of Assisi, had taken service in the Corsican regiment of the papal forces.

Lyrics vs libretto

Opera by gluck

Libretto

Libretist

Opera libretti

Felice married a Bolognese woman, Francesca Galasti, and became a grocer in the Via dei Cappellari. The couple had two sons and two daughters; Pietro was the younger son.

Pietro, while still a child, is said to have attracted crowds by reciting impromptu verses on a given subject.

On one such occasion in 1709, two men of distinction stopped to listen: Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, famous for legal and literary erudition as well as his directorship of the Arcadian Academy, and Lorenzini