Portrait of the composer Giovanni Battista Paisiello (1740-1816)

La Scala was founded in 1778 at a time when Italian opera had already existed for nearly two centuries.
Even though opera started in Florence and was frequently performed in Venice, the great opera composers who took this new art form around the world in the second half of the eighteenth century were schooled in Naples, as was Giovanni Paisiello (1740-1816). He was one of the first composers to be performed at La Scala, worked for years in St Petersburg and was the favourite composer of Napoleon, who is shown riding into Milan on horseback in an engraving held in the archive.
This portrait of the composer from 1791 is by the famous painter Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun .
Written on the score is: Rond. di piano/When my beloved comes/Music by Signor Giovanni Paisiello. This is a reference to an aria from Nina, or the Girl Driven Mad by Love, very well known at the time.