Birth and family

Birth and family Childhood, priesthood, early musical training Violin teacher The melodrama Mantua and the 4 Seasons The Teatro alla Moda by Benedetto Marcello Success in Rome and in Europe Anna and Paolina Giraud The last decade The instrumental works published in life Musical life in Venice in the 1700s (composers: Albinoni, Lotti, Marcello, Handel, Hasse, Porpora, Galuppi ...) Musical life in Venice in the 1700s (the places: the Basilica, the Churches, the Theaters, the Schools ...)

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in Venice on March 4, 1678. He was the oldest of the nine children had by Giovanni Battista Vivaldi with his wife Camilla Calicchio, who had married a year earlier, on June 11, and settled in Venice, near the Arsenale. Vivaldi was born very weak and was immediately baptized at the Bragora church for fear that he might die.

Later Antonio will recount that he suffered from a "tightness of the chest" that made him walk with difficulty. It is assumed that he suffered from bronchial asthma.Antonio's father, Giovanni Battista Vivaldi, was born around 1655. The origins of his family were from Brescia, but he lived in Venice from an early age. Giovanni Battista was a red-haired barber (his nickname was, in fact, "Rossi"= Red), a characteristic that his son Antonio inherited, which is why he is known as "the red Priest". Instead of devoting himself only to the profession of barber, however, Vivaldi father also became an excellent violinist, taught and was part of the orchestra of the Basilica of San Marco.

Antonio had four sisters and four brothers, none of them a musician. Little is known about them, apart from the names, for example, of Francesca, Cecilia, Zanetta, or the younger Iseppo, the black sheep of the family, among other things expelled from Venice after some scuffles.