In 1768 Metastasio received a present from Saverio Mattei, a young scholar from southern Italy who reintroduced himself to the poeta cesareo (with whom he had briefly corresponded in 1766) by sending him a recently published book. Mattei accompanied the gift with an ode addressed to Metastasio and a letter brimming with fulsome praise for the famous man—but not omitting a bit of puffery of himself. His ode consists of eighty-one lines of unabashed sycophancy replete with obscure classical allusions and compliments to Empress Maria Theresa and her servant Piero (Pietro Metastasio). Mattei imagined himself swept heavenward in Apollo's golden chariot, not toward Parnassus and the glories of Greece but to the grandeur of the imperial court in Vienna. While protesting modesty, he could not refrain from citing his own book in the company of those of the great Metastasio, whom he begged to look favorably on his work. In a shameless final line he had the effrontery to suggest that Metastasio bring it to the attention of the empress.

Metastasio treated Mattei seriously and allowed his letter to open a long and important correspondence between them. Mattei played an unexpectedly large part in Marianna's story. He was also a colorful character who deserves special attention here.

Mattei and His Italian Psalms

Saverio Mattei (1742–95), a Calabrian by birth, attained some repute in Naples, where he occupied the Chair of Oriental Languages—which, as we noted earlier in connection with Marianna's brother Joseph, meant Near Eastern tongues—at the university (fig. 5.1). He exercised his talents in poetry, philology, law, and theology. He was a musical amateur who harbored an enthusiasm for the salterio, a kind of dulcimer that he identified with the biblical psaltery; his special taste was to have important musical consequences for Martines. An opera lover and an admirer of Jommelli, he wrote a notable biography of the composer.

Mattei's magnum opus, part of which he presented to Metastasio, was I libri della Bibbia tradotti dall’ebraico originale : translations of psalms and other biblical verse into Italian poetry together with essays on Hebrew and Greek poetry and on the problems involved with biblical translation.