Rossini was 12 years old when his family came to Bologna. His father, a supporter of the Revolution, came here to escape the Papal State and to give their only child a good musical education. Gioachino went on to study at what is now the Conservatorio. At 18 he had to earn money and left Bologna for Venice, where he wrote his first serious work (“La cambiale del matrimonio”). Throughout his life, Rossini kept various houses in Bologna and lived there intermittently. In 1822, he married the famous mezzo-soprano Isabela Colbran in Bologna (see below). They kept houses in the city (a plaque on the Strada Maggiore still commemorates it) and in the countryside. With the assumption of responsibility for the Théâtre lyrique, the two had moved to Paris. After the end of her singing career, Colbran became erratic and addicted to gambling. In 1829 Rossini brought his wife back to Bologna, where she would henceforth live with Rossini’s parents. In letters Rossini’s father complained several times to his son, who lived in Paris, about Isabelle’s diva-like behavior, but Gioachino had already become estranged from her and separated from Colbran, who was 7 years older. He saw her only very sporadically. In 1845 she died and found her resting place in Bologna in the monumental Certosa cemetery. Rossini met the courtesan Olympe Pélissier in Paris, but spent time and again in Bologna, as he had taken an office in Bologna in 1836 that brought him back occasionally. The highlight was the performance of his Stabat Mater, conducted by Gaetano Donizetti, but after Colbran’s death Rossini left Bologna for good, this time in anger. He was accused by some people of not supporting the Risorgimento, which infuriated him. Rossini was rather an apolitical person and it was rumored that his second wife had been a bad influence on him. A friend was able to convince him to write a freedom anthem, which was then played in the Piazza Maggiore. This was the end of the last Bolognese chapter in Rossini’s life.