Pietro, whose original name was Pietro Trapassi, was born in Rome, 3d January 1698. His father, Felice Trapassi, a native of Assisi, had been forced by the poverty of his family to enter the Corsican regiment of the pope, had subsequently married, supported himself by copying legal documents, and saved money enough to open a shop in Rome, in partnership with a friend, for the sale of oil, meal, and other things of the kind. His mother was Francesca Galasti of Bologna. They had two sons, the elder of whom, Leopoldo, afterwards became an advocate, and distinguished himself as a religious polemic; and two daughters. Pietro from his earliest years showed an extraordinary talent for improvisation, and was accustomed to entertain his playmates in the street with impromptu rhymes. The celebrated jurist Gravina, having accidentally heard him so engaged while passing his father's shop one day, was so much interested by his precocious talent, and by the sweetness and modesty of his manners, that he proposed to his parents to adopt and educate the boy as his own son. The proposal was accepted. Gravina, who was a Grecian and a pedant, changed his name to Metastasio, from the Greek equivalent to tropassamento. Intending to educate him for the bar, where he thought his powers of improvisation and eloquence might be turned to most account, he sent him to his cousin Caroprese, in Calabria, to be taught Greek and philosophy. In a letter to Mattei, the poet dwells on these youthful studies with enthusiasm. Gravina did not, however, interdict what was his own favourite employment, the reading of the ancient poets, nor the practice of improvisation; and the handsome, modest, and vivacious boy was loved and admired in Naples and Crotona by the society to which the influence of his patron admitted him. He relates in one of his letters that he was accustomed at this time to engage in poetic contests with the most distinguished improvisatori; but the excitement being found prejudicial to his health, Gravina caused him to break it off, and apply himself more closely to the study of the Greek poets and of the early Italian writers, and to the cultivation of a correct style. For this course of conduct Metastasio afterwards expressed his gratitude, censuring the practice of improvisation as extremely injurious to taste and labour. At the age of twelve he translated the Iliad of Homer in ottava rima; and two years later he composed the tragedy of Giustino, on the model of his patron's dramas,—stiff and feeble imitations of the Greek,—borrowing the plot from the Italia Liberata of Trissini. An edition of this tragedy is extant, printed in 1713. In a letter to Calsabigi, who superintended the Paris edition of his Metastasio work in 1755, he expresses his regret that this immature production had been included. Yet it is not without beauties prophetic of the Olimpiade. The story is simple and affecting, and the plot is developed with much clearness. In 1714 Caroprese died, leaving Gravina his heir, who in consequence went into Calabria and rejoined his adopted son. These mingled occupations of poetical and legal study Metastasio pursued till the death of his benefactor in 1718. The blow was severely felt by the poet, who composed on the occasion an elegy entitled La strada alla gloria, which he recited, amid the tears of the audience, to the literary society founded by his distinguished patron. Gravina bequeathed him his Roman property, amounting to 15,000 scudi (between L3000 and L4000); and finding himself at the end of two years nearly penniless, he resolved to resume his legal studies. With the view of opposing a powerful barrier to his inclination, and escaping the seductions of society, he went to Naples, and placed himself under the tuition of the eminent lawyer Castagnola, whose aversion to poetry was such that Metastasio was compelled to observe the strictest secrecy in his favourite pursuits. His genius was, however, too well known, and too highly appreciated by the refined society in which he moved, to permit him long to resist the struggles of nature, seconded by admiration and flattery. He composed an epithalamium of 100 stanzas, in ottava rima, on the occasion of the marriage of the Marchese Pignatelli; and on the same occasion, perhaps, his first musical drama, Endimione, in 1721. But the event that fixed his destiny was the following:—The birthday of the Empress Elizabeth, consort of Charles VI, occurring during her pregnancy, the viceroy wished to celebrate it with unusual splendour, and requested Metastasio to write an opera. The latter complied, exacting a promise of strict silence with regard to the author's name, and produced Gli Orti Esperidi, which was received with the most unusual and unbounded applause. The viceroy was so highly gratified that he presented the poet with 200 ducats. At first every one was ignorant of the author, and supposed it to be the work of some Roman poet; not even the composer, Porpora, nor the actors knew. But Marianna Bulgarelli, known as "La Romana," from her birthplace, who had performed the part of Venus with great success and profit, succeeded in discovering him. Gli Orti Esperidi was published, with the name of the author, the same year at Naples. The opera of Angelica, also composed by Porpora, was produced on the same occasion in 1722. It is not clear whether it was before or after the production of Angelica that Metastasio finally determined on abandoning the legal profession. He quitted the house of Castagnola, and went to live with La Romana and her husband. She introduced him to Porpora, from whom he received instructions in the theory of music, and doubtless much insight into the converse adaptation. From La Romana herself he confesses to have learned much. Mattei asserts, as from good authority, that the finest situations in his next work, Didone Abbandonata, written for the carnival 1724, were suggested by this accomplished actress. This opera, composed by Sarro, and produced at Naples in that year, and afterwards composed by Vinci, and produced at Rome and Venice in the following years, rapidly spread the fame of Metastasio over the peninsula as the great dramatist of the age. In 1727 La Bulgarelli took leave of the stage, of which she had been now for eighteen years an ornament, and returned to her native city, taking with her her husband and her cicileo. Catone in Utica was written for the Roman stage in 1728, and was Metastasio's first (if we except Giustino) and last attempt in regular tragedy. The reception it met with convinced him that it was impossible to harmonize the requirements of the musical drama with those of tragedy; he changed the conclusion, adapting Metastasio. it to the powers of his actors and the taste of his audience, and never forgot the lesson. *Catone* was composed by Vinci for Rome, and next year by Leo for Venice. *Ezio*, *Alessandro nell'Indie*, and *Semiramide* rapidly followed, extending his fame, but not much improving his circumstances. Feeling himself partially dependent on La Bulgarelli, and with no very brilliant prospects, he became despondent, when in September 1729 he received a letter from Prince Pio of Savoy, director of the court theatre in Vienna, commissioning two dramas, and inviting him thither to occupy the post of imperial poet, with an annual salary of 3000 florins. This appointment he owed to his fame, to the influence of the Princess Althan, and the generosity of Zane, who retired on a pension. Metastasio welcomed it with eagerness. He merely requested time to complete his Roman engagements, chiefly the *Artaserse*; and having done so, he took a tender farewell of his family, and of the faithful Marianna, whom he never saw again, and repaired to Vienna in April 1730. He was received with cordiality in the house of Niccolò de Martinez, *cerimoniere* of the apostolic nuncio, where he continued to reside till his death.

The dramas which he produced in the year succeeding his arrival, *Adriano in Siria* and *Demetrio*, both composed by Caldara, and performed within a few days of each other, had great success. That of *Issipile*, written in the following year, moved the emperor from his customary reserve, and procured the poet his personal congratulations. His fame increased with the operas of *Giuseppe*, *Demofonte*, and the *Divine Olimpiade*, which successively appeared in 1733. To the plaudits of the *Olimpiade* the emperor added the more solid recompense of a treasurership in Naples, of which, however, he was in a few years bereft by the war of the succession. His life at this period may best be read in his letters to La Bulgarelli, written with great expansion and confidence. His soul was in his work: the scenes which touched his audience had first moved himself. "I send you," he writes, "a sonnet composed while I was writing a pathetic scene (it was the ninth scene of the second act of the *Olimpiade*), with which I was so much affected, that I found myself in tears." He sends her directions for the representation of *Demetrio* in Rome, asks her for suggestions and for advice, and talks of the applause he was receiving. While engaged on the *Clemenza di Tito*, February 1734, the news of Marianna's death reached him. For some time he was quite overpowered. She bequeathed him her whole fortune, amounting to 25,000 Roman scudi, which he at once made over to the widower. There cannot be much doubt as to the nature of his connection with the actress. The pious expressions he makes use of on the occasion, in a letter to a friend (Burney, vol. i., p. 109), are not sufficient to refute an inference so entirely warranted by all the facts, and by the state of society then, and unfortunately still, existing in Italy. His immediate and generous renunciation of her legacy procured him great credit. That act was one quite in harmony with the tenor of his whole life. From this time onward Metastasio's life was laborious and peaceful, little disturbed in outward appearance by the political distractions that followed the death of Charles VI, in 1740, or that of Charles VII, in 1744. On the former occasion he received excellent and honourable proposals from various courts, but he adhered to the fortunes and service of Maria Theresa, whom he had taught Italian, and who was personally attached to her tutor. During this period he produced his best works, writing only at the command of the court, and writing rapidly. He told Burney that the opera of *Achille in Sciro*, produced in 1736 on occasion of the marriage of Maria, was written in eighteen days, and that of *Ipermestra*, in 1744, in nine. The operas of *Temistocle* and *Attilio Regolo*, with the exception of the *Olimpiade* perhaps his best works, belong to this period; *Temistocle* being produced in 1738, and *Re-Metastasio-golo* being interrupted in 1740 by the death of the sovereign.

This continual labour, and the ungenial climate of Vienna, brought on in 1745 a serious illness, which obliged him to suspend his exertions. His malady was chiefly a nervous one, and he suffered from it more or less till his death. An occasional visit to his native country would perhaps have better reconciled his constitution to the severity of the Austrian climate, of which he so often bitterly complains; but excepting an annual visit to the seat of the Princess d'Althan in Moravia, he never stirred from Vienna. His days were spent in the society of the Martinez, and of a few congenial friends. Burney, who visited him in 1772, gives an interesting account of his mode of life and his conversation (*State of Music in Germany*, &c., vol. i., p. 298 ff.); but the principal, almost the only, source of information about him during this latter period are his own delightful letters. These give a fine picture of the nobleness, generosity, and kindness of his disposition. His most intimate friend was the celebrated singer Farinelli, to whom he writes as his "twin brother" (*gemello*), and who appears to have deserved and reciprocated his affections. These letters also show how thoroughly he had studied and comprehended the requirements of the composer, and with what care and judgment he adapted his dramas to the necessities of music. The ancient poets he read assiduously. Ovid was his particular favourite, as we might guess from the frequent occurrence of Ovidian sentiments in his works. In spite of the care of Gravina, he does not appear to have ever mastered the Greek language sufficiently to enable him to appreciate their tragic writers. The analysis he has left of them proves this; and he confesses to the difficulty he had of reading the *Poetics* of Aristotle, of which he has also left an imperfect abstract. Of the Italians, his great favourite and model was Tasso, to whom he revolted at an early age from the Ariostisti, and Marino, the so-called depraver of Italian poetry, whom he always read before sitting down to work. Metastasio died in Vienna on the 12th of April 1782. A fever, caught by exposing himself on the occasion of the pope's visit, carried him off in twelve days. He was buried in the church of St Michael. He left the younger Martinez heir to his real property and a fortune of 130,000 florins, with deduction of 2000 for each of the two sisters and 3000 for each of the three brothers of the legate. He had survived all his Italian relatives.

The dramatic works of Metastasio are of the very highest excellence in their kind. Judged simply as dramas, and in front of Shakespeare, Corneille, and Racine, they will be pronounced exceedingly defective in point of characterization, motive, and probability; but regarded as compositions to be set to music, they are unequalled. What are excellences and necessities in the spoken drama, become, when transferred to the sung drama, difficulties in the way of the composer and the audience. On the other hand, the improbabilities of incident and situation which would shock an audience in the spoken drama, tend to heighten the pleasure derived from music; the music itself, the greatest improbability, being already conceded. In estimating his powers, all those points in which Metastasio falls infinitely short of the real dramatists must be taken into account; but in estimating the value of his works, it matters little whether he was deficient in true dramatic genius, or voluntarily renounced its exercise. One thing only is to be regretted, that Metastasio did not exercise more judgment in the choice of his subjects; we may grant all his sentiments, incidents, and motive, but not that they should be introduced into history, or attached to great historical characters. Caesar, Amilcar, and Regulus, are too distinctly marked and too incongruous with the subject to be made the heroes of a love story. With such a choice, besides, the defects of Metastasio, in his letter of thanks to Zeno, says that the latter was his master and model. Apostolo Zeno rescued the Italian opera from the debasement into which it had sunk, and which is so admirably described in Marcello's *Teatro alla Moda*. He is a poet of high ability, if not of first-rate genius. He as much surpasses his pupil in force of characterization, simplicity and strength of expression, and accuracy of historical colouring, as he falls short of him in sweetness, delicate clearness, and musical adaptability. It is in these that Metastasio's great merit consists. His songs are already music. "He exerted himself to fulfill every demand of music. He shortened the recitative; he enlivened the dialogue. And as his mother tongue, now in the highest degree refined, was quite at his command, he made of the Italian rhythm a syllable music, which is single in its kind." (Bouterweck, *Gesch.* ii., p. 493.) The Italian critics have almost deified Metastasio. In respect of style, perhaps, they are the only proper judges; but it is impossible to agree with all that Andres, Arteaga, and Baretti have uttered in his praise. The sweetness, harmony, and lyrical rendering and finish of many of Metastasio's arias and canzonettes are quite unequalled; and one is rather surprised to learn the mechanical coolness with which he was accustomed to set to work. Of the canzonette *La Partenza* and that to Nice, *Grazie agl' innamor tui*, are perhaps the finest, as they are the most celebrated.

Metastasio, late in life, counted forty editions of his works in his own library. The best are,—the Paris edition of 1755, in 9 vols. 8vo, published under the direction of Calasibigi; the Turin, 1757, 10 vols. 4to, founded on the former, and frequently reprinted till 1780, when the Herissant edition, in 12 vols. 4to, appeared at Paris, under the care of Pezzana, from a copy of the Turin edition corrected by the author. The Conte Pajala published the posthumous works at Vienna in 1795. The Genoa edition of 1802 and the Padua of 1811 are the most valuable.