At the request of the Romanina, he wrote his a Di done Abbandonata," which was perhaps the first perfect musical drama that ever graced the Italian stage. The Romanina was a great actress, and a good judge of dra matic poetry, and Metastasio was obliged to her for Luggesting the finest situations in his Didone. She was thought, with the exception of Mingotti, to be the only instance ever known of a female singer who had studied stage effect as well as harmony, sufficiently to enlighten the author of the words which she sung, us well as the composer of the music. The celebrity of the Didone occasioned its being set by the best compos ers of the time, for the other principal theatres of Italy, and it brought the author a considerable pecuniary re ward.
In 1727, the Romanina having fulfilled 411 her thea trical engagements at Naples, was ready to return to her native city of Rome, provided her beloved poet would accompany her. Metastasio hesitated for some time, but at length consented, on condition that, in re• turn for the hospitality which he had received under her at Naples, she and her family would consent to be his guests at Rome, where the relatives of Me tastasio still resided. He therefore wrote to his agents to procure a house for the reception of his two fami lies of the Trapassi and Bulgarini ; and From the time of his arrival in that city, till his departure for Ger many, they all lived under the same roof. The Ro manina, as more accustomed to the superintendance of a family, managed the household ; the rest attended to their own pursuits ; while Metastasio received his visi• tors, wrote his verses, and increased his celibrity.
He finished several operas during his residence at Rome, as the " Catone in Utica," Egio, Semiramide Reconnosciuta, Artaserse and Alessandro nelle Indic, and his reputation continued to increase, not only in Italy, but spread beyond the Alps. But with all the praises which he acquired, it does not appear that lie reaped much profit from his labours ; and though he could not be said to be in necessitous circumstances, with his generous friend's purse at his command, he was poor, and surrounded by barren pros2ects com pared with the claims which he had upon the grati tude of his country, as the restorer of her poetry, and as the greatest living ornament of her language. He had invited the Romanina to be his guest, but was obliged to be indebted to her liberality. She tried to console him with the most affectionate appeals to his fortitude, but his spirit, though naturally cheerful, be gan to sink into gloom and despondency. His affairs were in this unpromising state, w hen, in 1729, lie re ceived an invitation from the Court of Vienna to come and reside there as coadjutor to Apostolo Zeno, the im perial laureate. His pension was to be three thousand florins (L.300) a year. The offer was the more flatter ing, that it came in consequence of the recommendation of Zeno himself, who had enjoyed the laurel since the year 1713. His chief employment had been to furnish lyrical dramas for the imperial theatre, and they were reckoned the best dramas of the kind which the Italian language could boast of, before those of Metastasio.
Zeno, declining in health and years, most honourably recommended a substitute for himself in this employ ment, who, he must have clearly foreseen, would eclipse his own poetical memory.
On quitting Rome for the imperial capital, Metasta sio consigned the care of all his effects and concerns to his zealous friend the Romanina, who willingly took charge of his little places, and of the sums of money which lie left behind him for the support of his lather. He arrived in Vienna the 30th of July, 1730. The first regular opera which he produced for the imperial theatre was Adrian° in Siria," which was set to mu sic by Caldara. Of its success we have no account ; but we may conjecture that it was well received, from the favour tvhich was shown to it by the rest of Eu rope. In one of his letters to Marianna Bulgarini, he gives a pleasing account of the reception of Deme trio," the second opera ‘vhich he composed in Vienna. The applause, he says, was such as the oldest people never remembered having been given to any theatrical piece. The audience repeated parts of it in conversa tion as if it had been Gel 111311. lle had not only been successful, but had conquered the envy attending on success; and " those," lie says, " who were before his enemies, arc now become his apostles." His corres pondence with llumanina continued to detail to her the successive reception of his pieces, and the other inci• dents of his life, till no great time before her death, which took place in 1734. She manifested her attach ment by beqeathing to hint all her possessions after the •decease ci her husband, to the amount of 25 000 crowns ; but Metastasio, with much rectiaide and propriety, declined the bequest. Inconsistent as it may seem with our ideas of law and decorum, the legality of this will is not questioned by any of his Italian biographers ; and his renunciation of it is spoken of by them all as a most disinterested sacrifice. Of the nature of his connection with the Romanina, it is no great breach of charity to judge, that it was not pro Tiably quite platonic. The circumstance of her hus and residing in the same house with them, both at Naples and Rome, might be thought indications of conjugal fidelity ; but a chaste actress and opera singer is a still more uncommon phenomenon in Italy than in England. The female Italian opera singers, as Di. Burney observes, generally find it convenient to have nominal husband, who will fight their battles, and contend with the impressario, or manager of the opera. In the course of their correspondence, it appears as if :he Homanina was at one time anxious to go to Vienna as a singer, and suspected Metastasio of not speaking openly on the subject. It was thought that he was fearful of the effect which her arrival might have had on his own reputation, as the Emperor Charles VI.