Pietro Metastasio (b.1698) was an Italian poet and librettist whose name, during the eighteenth century, was synonymous with all that was worthy in Italian serious opera, lyric poetry, and moral aspiration. His career began in Rome and Naples and continued in Vienna where, from 1730 until his death in 1782, he held the prime position of Imperial Court Poet. Metastasio's works range from the 27 librettos for the Italian serious opera through a host of similar pieces for the Viennese court and chapel, to smaller sonnets and lyrical verses, while also embracing treatises on the Greek drama, the Aristotle Poetics and the Horace Ars Poetica. Metastasian texts caught the attention of some 400 composers between 1720 and c.1835 and were represented across a geographical area that stretched from Lisbon to St. Petersburg and on through Central Europe; Copenhagen to Naples and even into the New World.

Information on Metastasio's works and on the many instances of them which were set to music were compiled into a vast scholarly database by Dr. Don Neville.  Changing technology has made it difficult to maintain the original site, and the material is being migrated to this new Omeka site.