The Italian composer Pietro Cesti (1623-1669), also called Marc' Antonio Cesti, was the most cosmopolitan representative of the Venetian opera school in the generation following Monteverd.

Pietro Cesti is supposed to have written more than 100 operas, but only 15 have survived, and of these the ones composed for Italian audiences were heavily influenced by Pietro Francesco Cavalli. Cesti also composed a great many cantatas to both sacred and secular texts, as well as some occasional pieces. His cosmopolitanism is demonstrated in the operas he wrote while residing in Innsbruck and Vienna, which differ from the typical Venetian opera in the number of choruses, the enlarged orchestra, and the inclusion of ballets, this last showing the influence of French taste, an influence that was very powerful in Germany and Austria at that time.

Cesti was born in Arezzo on Aug. 5, 1623. He was a chorister in the Cathedral and later at...