Luigi (Carlo Zanobi Salvadore Maria) Cherubini, born in Florence in 1760, had died on 25 March 1842.

The life of this great composer can be offered as a model for young artists in almost every particular. Cherubini's studies were long and patient, his compositions numerous, his enemies powerful. To the inflexibility of his character and the tenacity of his convictions must be added a real dignity that kept him always respectable, and which, sad to say, one does not often find in even the most eminent of artists. He was born in Florence towards the end of 1760, was taught from the age of nine by Bartolomeo and Alessandro Felici, and later by Bizzari and Castrucci, all composers nowadays forgotten. He didn't complete his musical education until around his twentieth year under Sarti. The Grand Duke of Tuscany [later Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II] then took him under his special protection, and Sarti, as payment for his lessons, was happy to get his pupil to write a large number of works which he inserted among his own, unscrupulously keeping all the honour of them for himself. Ultimately however, the teacher had to decide on launching his pupil's career, and Cherubini, finally free to see his music applauded under his own name, wrote several scores for Italian theatres, the success of which soon led to him being invited to London. It was there that he wrote La finta principessa and Giulio Sabino.