[Illustration: Outline sketch of commemorative medal. See page 45.] [Illustration: GIOACCHINO ROSSINI _Reproduction of a lithograph made by A. Lemoine, after a photograph from life taken by Erwin of Paris, in 1861._] [Illustration: ROSSINI] [Illustration] GIOACCHINO ROSSINI Rossini is one of the last and most glorious representatives of that admirable Italian school which for three centuries cast such a brilliant radiance over the art of its country, and which seems unhappily, to have come to a close with the illustrious Verdi. A genius, fertile and luminous, gifted with an inspiration warm and generous, an imagination ardent and active, he astonished the world for twenty years by his creative power, and after having enchanted his native land by a long series of works which were distinguished, now by the grace, now by the grandeur, now by the novelty of their forms, he prematurely terminated his dramatic career at the age of thirty-seven, by a marvellous masterpiece written expressly for the French stage. This was the _William Tell_ which radiated from France over the entire world, and which to-day, after an existence of sixty years, is still young, fresh and powerful, like a colossus which nothing can harm. The history of this immortal artist, whose name should be inscribed in letters of gold in the annals of the art, is certainly one of the most interesting which the history of music can furnish us. Gioacchino Rossini was born at Pesaro, a little town of the Romagne, Feb. 29, 1792. His father, who was a musician and played very well on the horn, was employed in this little town in the double capacity of _tubatore_ (town-trumpeter) and inspector of the slaughter houses. His mother, whose name was Anna Guidarini, was very beautiful and gifted with an exceptionally fine voice. At the time of the passage through Pesaro in 1796 of the victorious French army, Rossini's father, it is said, in a burst of enthusiasm for republican ideas, let fall some imprudent remarks which the reaction soon afterwards judged worthy of punishment. They began by dismissing him from the post of _tubatore_, after which it was not long before he was thrown into prison. Left alone with her child, his wife joined a travelling opera troupe, and when the prisoner was set at liberty he followed her in her peregrinations, playing the horn in the orchestra of the theatres at which she performed.