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Cicisbeo
In 18th- and 19th-century Italy, the ''cicisbeo'' ( , , ; plural: ''cicisbei'') or () was the man who was the professed gallant or lover of a woman married to someone else. With the knowledge and consent of the husband, the cicisbeo attended his mistress at public entertainments, to church and other occasions, and had privileged access to this woman. The arrangement is comparable to the Spanish ''cortejo'' or ''estrecho'' and, to a lesser degree, to the French ''petit-maître''. Etymology The exact etymology of the word is unknown; some evidence suggests it originally meant "in a whisper" (perhaps an onomatopeic word). Other accounts suggest it is an inversion of ''bel cece'', which means "beautiful chick (pea)". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded usage of the term in English was found in a letter by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu dated 1718. The term appears in Italian in Giovanni Maria Muti's ''Quaresimale Del Padre Maestro Fra Giovanni Maria Muti De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Giorno (poem)
"Il giorno" ("The Day") is a poem written by Giuseppe Parini (1729–1799), first published in 1763. It is an ironic and satirical representation of the aristocracy of his time. His poem represents the beginning of polite literature in Italy. It was originally divided into three parts: ''Il mattino'', ''Il mezzogiorno'' and ''La sera'' ("Morning", "Midday" and "Evening"). The last part was later divided into two separate parts, ''Il vespro'' and ''La notte'' ("Evening" and "Night"). Plot ''Il mattino'' In ''Il mattino'' (The Morning), Parini writes about the beginning of a young man's day. It begins with his waking up and continues with the breakfast and the choice of it. The young man can choose between several drinks, from chocolate (if he needs to digest the dinner of the last night) to coffee (if he tends to become fat). It continues with some welcome and unwelcome meetings, the ''toeletta'' and the reading of some letters. Then he gets out to meet his lady (aristocratic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exclusively to people of the same sex or gender. It also denotes Sexual identity, identity based on attraction, related behavior, and community affiliation. Along with bisexuality and heterosexuality, homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation within the heterosexual–homosexual continuum. Although no single theory on the cause of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support, scientists favor Biology and sexual orientation, biological theories. There is considerably more evidence supporting nonsocial, biological causes of sexual orientation than social ones, especially for males. A major hypothesis implicates the Prenatal development, prenatal environment, specifically the organizationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
L'italiana In Algeri
''L'italiana in Algeri'' (; ''The Italian Girl in Algiers'') is an operatic ''dramma giocoso'' in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca. It premiered at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice on 22 May 1813. The music is characteristic of Rossini's style, remarkable for its fusion of sustained, manic energy with elegant, pristine melodies. Composition history Rossini wrote ''L'italiana in Algeri'' when he was 21. Rossini stated that he composed the opera in 18 days, though other sources claim that it took him 27 days. Rossini entrusted the composition of the recitatives as well as the aria "Le femmine d'Italia" to an unknown collaborator. The opera is notable for Rossini's mixing of opera seria style with opera buffa. The overture is widely recorded and performed today, known for its distinct opening of slow, quiet pizzicato basses, leading to a sudden loud burst of sound from the full orchestra. This "surpr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni (, also , ; 25 February 1707 – 6 February 1793) was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty. His plays offered his contemporaries images of themselves, often dramatizing the lives, values, and conflicts of the emerging middle classes. Though he wrote in French and Italian, his plays make rich use of the Venetian language, regional vernacular, and colloquialisms. Goldoni also wrote under the pen name and title ''Polisseno Fegeio, Pastor Arcade'', which he claimed in his memoirs the " Arcadians of Rome" bestowed on him. Biography Memoirs There is an abundance of autobiographical information on Goldoni, most of which comes from the introductions to his plays and from his ''Memoirs''. However, these memoirs are known to contain many errors of fact, especially about his earli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Antiquarian's Family
''The Antiquarian's Family, or The Mother-in-law and the Daughter'' (''La famiglia dell'antiquario, ossia La suocera e la nuora'') is a comedy by Venetian author Carlo Goldoni, first published in 1749. Plot Introduction In the introduction, Goldoni introduces the plot and characters : Count Anselmo from Palermo, an antiquarian who spends his money on low value items that are presented to him as ancient and precious; his wife, now elderly but who poses as a young woman, who fights with her daughter; and her son, Count Giacinto, who asks in vain for help to pacify the two. Act 1 Count Anselmo is in his study admiring his precious "Pescennius Niger, Pescennius," an ancient coin "so well survived that it seems to have been coined today". His servant Brighella arrives to bother him with certain debts he needs to pay and reprove him for throwing away his small fortune for household junk. His master accuses him of ignorance, and tells him that with the dowry from his son's marriage, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age resulted in List of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, more than 800 works representing virtually every Western classical genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphony, symphonic, concerto, concertante, chamber music, chamber, operatic, and choir, choral repertoires. Mozart is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Classical music, Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, Mozart showed Child prodigy, prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. At age five, he was already competent on keyboard and violin, had begun to compose, and performed before European r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Così Fan Tutte
(''Women are like that, or The School for Lovers''), Köchel catalogue, K. 588, is an opera buffa in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was first performed on 26 January 1790 at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte who also wrote ''The Marriage of Figaro, Le nozze di Figaro'' and ''Don Giovanni''. Although it is commonly held that was written and composed at the suggestion of the Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor Joseph II, recent research does not support this idea. There is evidence that Mozart's contemporary Antonio Salieri tried to set the libretto but left it unfinished. In 1994, John A. Rice (musicologist), John Rice uncovered two String trio, terzetti by Salieri in the Austrian National Library. The short title, ''Così fan tutte'', literally means "So do they all", using the feminine plural (''wikt:tutte#Italian, tutte'') to indicate women. It is usually translated into English as "Women are like that". The words a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Parini
Giuseppe Parini (23 May 1729 – 15 August 1799) was an Italian satirist and Neoclassicism, Neoclassical poet. Biography Parini (originally spelled Parino) was born in Bosisio Parini, Bosisio (later renamed Bosisio Parini in his honour) in Brianza, Lombardy from a poor family. His father, who was a petty silk trader, sent him to Milan under the care of his great-aunt: there he studied under the Barnabites in the Arcimboldi Academy, while earning a living by copying manuscripts. In 1741, his great-aunt left him a monthly payment, on condition that he enter the priesthood. Parini was thus ordained, although his religious studies were not profitable because of his need to work in a lawyer's office during his free time and his intolerance of the old-fashioned teaching methods used. In 1752, he published at Lugano, under the pseudonym of "Ripano Eupilino", a small volume of selected poems, ''Alcune poesie'', which secured his election to the Accademia dei Trasformati at Milan, as well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beppo (poem)
''Beppo: A Venetian Story'' is a lengthy poem by Lord Byron, written in Venice in 1817. ''Beppo'' marks Byron's first attempt at writing using the Italian '' ottava rima'' metre, which emphasized satiric digression. It is the precursor to Byron's most famous and generally considered best poem, ''Don Juan''. The poem contains 760 verses, divided into 95 stanzas. Narrative The poem tells the story of a Venetian lady, Laura, whose husband, Giuseppe (or "Beppo" for short), has been lost at sea for the past three years. According to Venetian customs she takes on a '' Cavalier Servente'', simply called "the Count". When the two of them attend the Venetian Carnival, she is closely observed by a Turk who turns out to be her missing husband. Beppo explains that he has been captured and enslaved, and was freed by a band of pirates that he subsequently joined. Having accumulated enough money he left piracy and returned to reclaim his wife and be re-baptized. Laura rejoins Beppo and befr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It shares Anglo-Scottish border, a land border with Scotland to the north and England–Wales border, another land border with Wales to the west, and is otherwise surrounded by the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south, the Celtic Sea to the south-west, and the Irish Sea to the west. Continental Europe lies to the south-east, and Ireland to the west. At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 census, the population was 56,490,048. London is both List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, the largest city and the Capital city, capital. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic. It takes its name from the Angles (tribe), Angles, a Germanic peoples, Germanic tribe who settled du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teresa, Contessa Guiccioli
Teresa, Contessa Guiccioli (1800–1873) was an Italian noblewoman and the married lover of Lord Byron while he was living in Ravenna and writing the first five cantos of '' Don Juan''. She wrote the biographical account ''Lord Byron's Life in Italy''. On 19 January 1818, Teresa married an elderly diplomat, Count Alessandro Guiccioli, who was 39 years her senior. It was three days later, on 22 January, that she met Lord Byron at the home of Countess Albrizzi. Count Guiccioli was a nobleman who had ingratiated himself with Napoleon during his campaign in Italy in 1796, and during the French rule of Italy during the Napoleonic era, Count Guiccioli held a series of high offices, making him one of the most powerful men in Italy. There is no evidence that Teresa, his third wife, ever felt any affection for him. Byron's relationship with Teresa was a dangerous one as Count Guiccioli was still a powerful man who was widely believed to have been behind the murder in 1816 of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
