Donizetti spent his childhood in Bergamo in poor circumstances. Thanks to the support of the director of the church music school, the German Simon Mayr, Donizetti received a sound musical education in Bergamo. After interludes in Milan, he left his native Bergamo for Naples at the age of 24 after his first major success in Rome. In 1840, as a celebrated opera composer, he returned to his hometown for a visit, which celebrated its son with a gala opera performance, one of his greatest satisfactions of his life. He returned 25 years later as a seriously ill and mentally severely deranged patient. The illness was due to his severe, advanced gonorrhea. In 1848 he died in Bergamo at the age of 51.