Gaetano Donizetti, an Italian composer, born in Bergamo, Sept. 25, 1798, died there, April 8, 1848. He was originally destined for the law, but showing an unusual taste for art, he was placed at the musical institute of Bergamo, then under the direction of Simon Mayer, and subsequently studied at Bologna, under Pilotti and Mattel. At the age of 20 he had composed some short pieces of religious and instrumental music, when the brilliant career of Rossini captivated him, and he determined to write for the stage. His father opposed his plans, and in a pique Donizetti entered the Austrian military service, and while in garrison with his regiment in Venice produced in 1818 his first opera, Enrico di Bor-gogna. Several other works followed, and in 1822 his Zoraide di Granata, produced in Rome, procured him his discharge from the army. His works now succeeded each other with great rapidity, and in 1827 he accepted an engagement with the director of the theatres at Naples, to write four operas a year, two serious and two buffo, for four years. In 1830, when his Anna Bolena was produced at Milan, he had written 31 operas, nearly all of which were moderately successful.

At this time Bellini appeared, and Donizetti, who had hitherto been a professed imitator of Rossini, modified his style by borrowing somewhat of the pathos of his young contemporary. He went to Paris in 1835 to compete with him, but without success, his Marino Faliero being eclipsed by Bellini's Puritani. He returned to Naples, and in six weeks composed his Lucia di Lammermoor, the success of which consoled him for his disappointment. In 1840 he returned to Paris, and brought out Les martyrs, La favorita, and La fille da regiment. The reputation acquired by these and other works procured him the appointment of professor of counterpoint at the royal college of music in Naples, and of chapelmaster and composer to the court of Vienna. His last operas were Don Sebastien (produced at Paris in 1843, which he wrote out in two months, remarking at the close of his labors, "Don Sebastien will be the death of me ") and Cata-rina Cornaro, produced at Naples in 1844. Soon afterward a mental affection, the result of early habits of dissipation and of excessive application, compelled him to abstain from work, and for the last few years of his life he was the inmate of a lunatic asylum.

In addition to the works specified, he composed Lu-crezia Borgia (Milan, 1833), Linda di Cha-mounix (Vienna, 1842), Don Pasquale (Paris, 1843), and Maria di Rohan (Vienna, 1843). He produced more than 60 operas, most of which, in consequence of the haste and carelessness with which he wrote, have sunk into obscurity. In the fulness and variety of his melodies, and in his appreciation of dramatic fitness in single or concerted scenes, he stands almost unrivalled, and some of his works will probably long retain their hold upon popular favor. His facility was such that he was known to write out the score of an opera in two days. DON JUAN, a mythical personage, a type of licentiousness and dissipation, accomplished and wicked, represented with all the graces which win woman's heart, and ail the snares which beguile woman's virtue. According to tradition, the patrician family Tenorio of Seville was the first to produce a Don Juan sufficiently remarkable to become the representative man of the order.

His life is placed by some legends in the 14th century under the reign of Pedro the Cruel, and by others in the 16th century in the era of Charles V. He is represented to have been in the act of abducting a daughter of the governor of Seville when caught by her father; a duel ensued, in which the governor was slain. A statue having been erected to the deceased in the family vault in the convent of San Francisco, Don Juan enters the vault and invites the statue to join him in his revels. The stony guest appears at the banquet to the great amazement of Don Juan, and terminates the festivity by consigning his entertainer to the infernal regions. The story was first dramatized at the beginning of the 17th century by the Spanish poet Gabriel Tellez, commonly called Tirso de Molina, under the title of EL burlador de Sevilla, o el convivado de piedra. This drama, soon after its publication, was adapted for the Italian stage, and thence found its way to Paris, where it became the basis of several French adaptations, of which Moliere's Don Juan, ou le festin de pierre, and Thomas Corneille's production, modelled after Moliere's play, are the most celebrated.

In England a play written by Shadwell, called "The Libertine," and treating the same subject, was performed in 1670. The subject was not produced on the Spanish stage in its present form till the early part of the 18th century, when it was rewritten by Antonio de Zamora. This version of Zamora furnished the groundwork of the modern treatment of the theme. Goldoni published his Giovanni Tenorio about the middle of the 18th century. Gluck followed with a ballet in 1761, Vincenzo Righini with an opera, and Lorenzo da Ponte with the text to Mozart's opera in 1787, which appeared in the same year. This is the masterpiece of this great composer, and at the same time the most remarkable production to which the legend of Don Juan has given rise. Apart from the opera and the drama, the Don Juan literature has found in the present century a new field in the sphere of romance and poetry in Spain and France; while in England the name of Don Juan was adopted by Byron as a congenial title for his famous poem.

The two characters of Faust and Don Juan are blended in one and the same personage in a German drama by Grabbe, while a great number of plays, novels, and translations from the Spanish on Don Juan abound among German books of the present day.