page_title: Lombardy
section_title: Music
hierarchical_section_title: Lombardy / Culture / Music
caption_attribution_description: English: architettura
context_page_description: Lombardy is one of the twenty administrative regions of Italy, in the northwest of the country, with an area of 23,844 square kilometres. About 10 million people live in Lombardy, forming more than one-sixth of Italy's population, and more than a fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in the region, making it the most populous, richest and most productive region in the country. It is also one of the top regions in Europe for the same criteria. Milan's metropolitan area is the largest in Italy and the third most populated functional urban area in the EU. Lombardy is also the Italian region with most UNESCO World Heritage Sites—Italy having the highest number of World Heritage Sites in the world. The region is also famous for its historical figures such as Virgil, Pliny the Elder, Ambrose, Caravaggio, Claudio Monteverdi, Antonio Stradivari, Cesare Beccaria, Alessandro Volta, Alessandro Manzoni, and popes John XXIII and Paul VI.
context_section_description: Besides Milan, the region of Lombardy has 11 other provinces, most of them with equally great musical traditions. Bergamo is famous for being the birthplace of Gaetano Donizetti and home of the Teatro Donizetti; Brescia hosts the impressive 1709 Teatro Grande; Cremona is regarded as the birthplace of the commonly used violin and is home to several of the most prestigious luthiers in the world; and Mantua was one of the founding and most important cities in 16th- and 17th-century opera and classical music.
  Other cities such as Lecco, Lodi, Varese and Pavia also have rich musical traditions, but Milan is the hub and centre of the Lombard musical scene. It was the workplace of Giuseppe Verdi, one of the most famous and influential opera composers of the 19th century, and boasts a variety of acclaimed theatres, such as the Piccolo Teatro and the Teatro Arcimboldi; however, the most famous is the 1778 Teatro alla Scala, one of the most important and prestigious operahouses in the world.
caption: The auditorium of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.
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