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Italian composer celebrated for his prolific contributions to bel canto opera during the Romantic era. Born in Bergamo, Donizetti composed nearly 70 operas alongside sacred music, chamber works, and symphonies. Key masterpieces include Lucia di Lammermoor, L'elisir d'amore, and Don Pasquale. He served as court composer in Naples and later as Habsburg court kapellmeister in Vienna before retiring due to illness.

• Composed entire operas in weeks; L'elisir d'amore was written in just six weeks.
• Suffered personal tragedies: his wife Virginia died during a cholera epidemic (1837), and their three children died in infancy.
• Committed to an asylum near Paris in 1846 after exhibiting symptoms of neurosyphilis-induced paralysis and dementia.
• Died paralyzed and mentally incapacitated at age 50; his death certificate cited cerebro-spinal degeneration as the cause.
• His final opera, Caterina Cornaro (1844), premiered to hostile reception, hastening his retirement.