Editing Gioachino Rossini (section)

===Early life===
{{multiple image|title=Rossini's parents|caption_align=center| align = right | direction = horizontal | header_align = center | footer_align = left | image1 = Giuseppe Rossini (father of Gioachino Rossini).jpg| width1 = 207| alt1=painting of elderly man, smiling at the artists|caption1 = Giuseppe Rossini<br />(1758–1839) | image2 = Anna Rossini (mother of Gioachino Rossini).jpg|alt2=painting of a middle-aged woman, looking with serious expression in the direction of the painter| width2 =200 | caption2 = Anna Rossini<br />(1771–1827)}}

Rossini was born on 29 February in 1792<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gioachino-Rossini |title=Gioachino Rossini |encyclopedia=Britannica |access-date=27 February 2024}}</ref> in [[Pesaro]], a town on the [[Adriatic Sea|Adriatic]] coast of Italy that was then part of the [[Papal States]].{{sfn|Kendall|1992|p= 9}} He was the only child of Giuseppe Rossini, a trumpeter and horn player, and his wife Anna, ''née'' Guidarini, a seamstress by trade, daughter of a baker.{{sfn|Osborne|2007|p=4}} Giuseppe Rossini was charming but impetuous and feckless; the burden of supporting the family and raising the child fell mainly on Anna, with some help from her mother and mother-in-law.{{sfn|Kendall|1992|pp= 10–11}}{{sfn|Servadio|2003|p=9}} [[Stendhal]], who published a colourful biography of Rossini in 1824,{{sfn|Prunières|1921|p=143}} wrote:

{{Blockquote|Rossini's portion from his father, was the true native heirship of an Italian: a little music, a little religion, and a volume of [[Ariosto]]. The rest of his education was consigned to the legitimate school of southern youth, the society of his mother, the young singing girls of the company, those prima donnas in embryo, and the gossips of every village through which they passed. This was aided and refined by the musical barber and news-loving coffee-house keeper of the Papal village.{{sfn|Stendhal|1824|p=4}}{{refn|Stendhal's ''Memoirs of Rossini'', quoted here, is not the same as his ''Life of Rossini'', and is believed to be compiled from the author's first draft. The musicologist [[Henry Prunières]] commented in the 20th century, "From the historical point of view this [i.e. the ''Memoirs''] is the first and, without doubt, the best book written on Rossini in the first half of the nineteenth century. For Stendhalians, however, it is far from possessing the same interest as ''The Life of Rossini'', which is an improvisation of genius, exuberant with life, bubbling over with ideas."{{sfn|Prunières|1921|p=143}}|group= n}}|}}
Giuseppe was imprisoned at least twice: first in 1790 for insubordination to local authorities in a dispute about his employment as town trumpeter; and in 1799 and 1800 for republican activism and support of the troops of [[Napoleon]] against the Pope's Austrian backers.{{sfn|Osborne|2007|p=5}} In 1798, when Rossini was aged six, his mother began a career as a professional singer in comic opera, and for a little over a decade was a considerable success in cities including [[Trieste]] and [[Bologna]], before her untrained voice began to fail.{{sfn|Osborne|2004|p=11}}

In 1802 the family moved to [[Lugo, Emilia-Romagna|Lugo]], near [[Ravenna]], where Rossini received a good basic education in Italian, Latin and arithmetic as well as music.{{sfn|Osborne|2004|p=11}} He studied the horn with his father and other music with a priest, Giuseppe Malerbe, whose extensive library contained works by [[Joseph Haydn|Haydn]] and [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]], both little known in Italy at the time, but inspirational to the young Rossini. He was a quick learner, and by the age of twelve, he had composed a set of [[Six string sonatas (Rossini)|six sonatas]] for four stringed instruments, which were performed under the aegis of a rich patron in 1804.{{refn|The quartets were written for the unusual combination of two violins, one cello and one double bass. They achieved some popularity in 1825 and 1826 when five of the six were published in an arrangement for the traditional [[string quartet]] combination of two violins, one viola and one cello. The remaining sonata was not published until 1954.{{sfn|Kendall|1992|p=13}}|group= n}} Two years later he was admitted to the recently opened [[Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini|Liceo Musicale, Bologna]], initially studying singing, cello and piano, and joining the composition class soon afterwards.{{sfn|Gossett|2001|loc=§&nbsp;1. Early years}} He wrote some substantial works while a student, including a mass and a cantata, and after two years he was invited to continue his studies. He declined the offer: the strict academic regime of the Liceo had given him a solid compositional technique, but as his biographer Richard Osborne puts it, "his instinct to continue his education in the real world finally asserted itself".{{sfn|Osborne|2004|pp=11–12}}

While still at the Liceo, Rossini had performed in public as a singer and worked in theatres as a [[répétiteur]] and keyboard soloist.{{sfn|Kendall|1992|p=16}} In 1810 at the request of the popular tenor [[Domenico Mombelli]] he wrote his first operatic score, a two-act operatic ''[[Dramma per musica|dramma serio]]'', ''[[Demetrio e Polibio]]'', to a libretto by Mombelli's wife. It was publicly staged in 1812, after the composer's first successes.{{sfn|Gossett|2001|loc=§&nbsp;1. Early years}} Rossini and his parents concluded that his future lay in composing operas. The main operatic centre in northeastern Italy was [[Venice]]; under the tutelage of the composer [[Giovanni Morandi (composer)|Giovanni Morandi]], a family friend, Rossini moved there in late 1810, when he was eighteen.{{sfn|Servadio|2003|pp=25–25}}