Pietro Metastasio

The son of a soldier-turned-grocer, Pietro Antonio Domenico Bonaventura Trapassi (1698-1782) had his name Hellenized into “Metastasio” by his benefactor Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, who intended for him to become a lawyer. The boy showed great talent for words and was translating Homer’s Iliad into Italian as a teen. Despite Gravina’s wishes, he fell into writing libretti for operas and came to enjoy a near-monopoly on such work, as almost all of Europe’s successful composers set his words to music.