SACCHINI, Antonio Maria Gaspare (1734-1786), musical composer, of the Italian school, was born at Pozzuoli, 23d July 1734, and educated under Durante at the Conservatorio di San Onofrio at Naples. His first serious opera was produced at Rome in 1762, and was followed by many others, nearly all of which were successful. In 1769 he removed to Venice; and in 1772 he visited London, where, notwithstanding a cruel cabal formed against him, he achieved a brilliant success, especially in his four new operas, Tamerlano, Lucio Vero, Nitetti e Perseo, and Il Gran Cid. Ten years later he met with an equally enthusiastic reception in Paris, where his Rinaldo was produced under the immediate patronage of Queen Marie Antoinette, to whom he had been recommended by the emperor Joseph II. But neither in England nor in France did his reputation continue to the end of his visit. He seems to have been everywhere the victim of bitter jealousy. Even Marie Antoinette was not able to support his cause in the face of the general outcry against the favour shown to foreigners; and by her command, most unwillingly given, his last opera and undoubted masterpiece, Oedipe à Colone, was set aside in 1786 to make room for Lemoine’s Phèdre,— a circumstance which so preyed upon his mind that he died of chagrin, 7th October 1786....