lovely diner out on a junketing, and got shot at with blunderbusses from
the gondola of an infuriated rival.

Opera progressed toward a fixed status with a swiftness hardly
paralleled in the history of any art. The soil was rich and fully
prepared for the growth, and the fecund root, once planted, shot into
a luxuriant beauty and symmetry, which nothing could check. The Church
wisely gave up its opposition, and henceforth there was nothing to
impede the progress of a product which spread and naturalized itself
in England, France, and Germany. The inventive genius of Monteverde,
Carissimi, Scarlatti (the friend and rival of Handel), Durante, and
Leonardo Leo, perfected the forms of the opera nearly as we have them
today. A line of brilliant composers in the school of Durante and Leo
brings us down through Pergolesi, Derni, Terradiglias, Jomelli, Traetta,
Ciccio di Majo, Galuppi, and Giuglielmi, to the most distinguished of
the early Italian composers, Nicolo Piccini, who, mostly forgotten
in his works, is principally known to modern fame as the rival of the
mighty Gluck in that art controversy which shook Paris into such bitter
factions. Yet, overshadowed as Piccini was in the greatness of his
rival, there can be no question of his desert as the most brilliant
ornament and exponent of the early operatic school. No greater honor
could have been paid to him than that he should have been chosen as
their champion by the _Italianissimi_ of his day in the battle royal
with such a giant as Gluck, an honor richly deserved by a composer
distinguished by multiplicity and beauty of ideas, dramatic insight, and
ardent conviction.


II.