Paris and Swiss towns, the family arrived at Salzburg in November, 1766. Wolfgang was pleased at seeing again his favorite cat, and then under his father's direction he began the study of the "Gradus" of Fux. In 1767 he learned Latin and set to Latin words a comedy, "Apollo et Hyacinthus," at the instigation of the Archbishop, who had hitherto played the part of doubting Thomas. He also wrote four pianoforte concertos for his own use in concerts. [Illustration: MOZART IN HIS FOURTEENTH YEAR. Painted in Verona, Jan. 6 and 7, 1770. Painter unknown.] Leopold was not blind to the fact that Italy was the home of great composers and illustrious singers; that its atmosphere was stimulating to musical thought; that its very name was synonymous with music. Under pretext of a short visit to Vienna, he made his excuses to the Archbishop and started, in September, 1767, with his family on a longer journey. In Vienna, the children were seized with small-pox, and it was not until January, 1768, that they were able to enter into the musical life of the town. They heard Gluck's "Alceste," and Leopold preferred to it Hasse's "Partenope." Joseph II., a man of frugal mind, demanded of Wolfgang an opera for his theatre, and the boy wrote "La Finta Simplice," an opera-buffa in three acts. It won the unqualified praise of the singers and such composers as Hasse, but the cabal against Wolfgang was too strong, and the opera was not given. "Bastien und Bastienne," an opera in one act, was written immediately after, and produced with great applause in the house of a Vienna doctor. (The pastoral theme of the instrumental introduction, the intrada, anticipates in a singular manner the opening of Beethoven's Third Symphony.) Wolfgang's first mass was given in public, and he himself directed. The Archbishop of Salzburg sent word to Leopold that his pay would continue only while he was actually in Salzburg, and so the family returned home. But the Italian journey was still in Leopold's head, and hoping to pay the expenses of the trip by giving concerts, he started out with Wolfgang in December, 1769. At Roveredo and Verona, the enthusiasm of the people was unbounded; at Milan they met the generous Von Firmian, who was the means of procuring a contract for Wolfgang to write an opera for the Christmas holidays; at Bologna they became acquainted with Father Martini and Farinelli; at Florence, Wolfgang met his friend Manzuoli and Thomas Linley, the English violinist of his own age; and in Holy Week they were at Rome, and they heard the Allegri _Miserere_. The story of the boy memorizing this famous composition at a hearing, writing it out, and correcting it after a second hearing, is familiar to all. The feat provoked the wildest curiosity to see him, and he was looked at superstitiously, just as, soon after, at Naples his virtuosoship was attributed to a ring worn upon a finger of the left hand. The concerts