Paganini must ere this have received invitations to visit other countries, for Spohr in his diary remarks, when referring to Paganini's first visit, that he had apparently abandoned his project of going to Vienna. In 1817, Paganini visited Piacenza, where he met the Polish violinist, Karl Joseph von Lipinski, who had gone to Italy expressly to hear Paganini. The Italian treated his Polish brother artist generously, and played with him at two concerts. Paganini was also again at Milan that year and paid a visit to his mother at Genoa. According to Anders, his father died in 1817. At the close of the same year Paganini was in Rome, where Rossini's opera "La Cenerentola" was produced at the opening of the Carnival season, December 26th. It is related that Meyerbeer was also in Rome at this time, and that Rossini's "Carnovale" was sung in the streets by the composer, Meyerbeer, and Paganini, who disguised themselves for the frolic. Paganini in the Palace of Prince von Kaunitz, the Austrian Ambassador, was introduced to Prince Metternich, who, charmed with his talent, pressed him to visit Vienna. But the violinist's health was in a precarious state. He suffered from an intestinal disorder, aggravated by his addiction to some quack remedy. He gave concerts in Rome, of which Schilling, who gives the date, however, as 1827, gives a very curious account. The first concert, though held in a Palace--such buildings being met with at every step--was in a room like a hay-loft. The orchestra consisted of some half-dozen shabbily dressed players, the singers were mechanics, members of the chorus of the Teatro Argentina, and the audience scarcely numbered fifty. Rome, professedly the first musical city of Italy, and of Europe, was ignorant of Paganini, the greatest violin virtuoso of Italy and the world. But his extraordinary genius kindled coldness into enthusiasm. At his second concert the attendance increased tenfold; at the third the success was even greater.