Pietro Cossa

Cossa was born at Rome, and claimed descent from the family of Antipope John XXIII.

He manifested an independent spirit from his youth, and was expelled from a Jesuit school on the double charge of indocility and patriotism.

Cleopatra, Messalina, Julian, enjoyed great popularity, and his dramas on subjects derived from Italian history, Rienzi and The Borgias, were also successful.

Incidental music for some of his plays was written by celebrated Italian composers, notably Luigi Mancinelli.

But he was an energetic writer, never tame or languid, and at the same time able to command the attention of an audience without recourse to melodramatic artifice; while his sonorous verse, if scarcely able to support the ordeal of the closet, is sufficiently near to poetry for the purposes of the stage.