as possible to
behold. The young gentlemen of Bergamo insisted on bearing the remains
of their illustrious fellow-townsman, although the cemetery was a league
and a half from the town. The road was crowded its whole length by
people who came from the surrounding country to witness the procession;
and to give due praise to the inhabitants of Bergamo, never, hitherto,
had such great honors been bestowed upon any member of that city."

III.

The future author of "Norma" and "La Sonnambula," Bellini, took his
first lessons in music from his father, an organist at Catania.*

* Bellini was born in 1802, nine years after his
contemporary and rival, Donizetti, and died in 1835,
thirteen years before.

He was sent to the Naples Conservatory by the generosity of a noble
patron, and there was the fellow-pupil of Mercadante, a composer who
blazed into a temporary lustre which threatened to outshine his fellows,
but is now forgotten except by the antiquarian and the lover of church
music. Bellini's early works, for he composed three before he was
twenty, so pleased Barbaja, the manager of the San Carlo and La Scala,
that he intrusted the youth with the libretto of "Il Pirata," to be
composed for representation at Florence. The tenor part was written for
the great singer, Rubini, whose name has no peer among artists, since
male sopranos were abolished by the outraged moral sense of society.
Rubini retired to the country with Bellini, and studied, as they were
produced, the simple touching airs with which he so delighted the public
on the stage.

La Scala rang with plaudits when the opera was produced, and Bellini's
career was assured. "I Capuletti" was his next successful opera,
performed at Venice in 1829, but it never became popular out of Italy.

The significant period of Bellini's life was in the year 1831, which
produced "La Sonnambula," to be followed by "Norma" the next season.
Both these were written for and introduced before the Neapolitan public.
In these works he reached his highest development, and by them he is
best known to fame. The opera-story of "La Sonnambula," by Romani,
an accomplished writer and scholar, is one of the most artistic and
effective ever put into the hands of a composer. M. Scribe had already
used the plot both as the subject of a vaudeville and a choregraphie
drama; but in Romani's hands it became a symmetrical story full of
poetry and beauty. The music of this opera, throbbi