Metastasio was born in Rome in 1698. His real name was Antonio Domenico Bonaventura Trapassi. His father came from Assisi, a city in the Umbria region of Italy. His mother came from Bologna. Metastasio's father, Felice Trapasso, was a soldier in the Pope's army. Later he had a small shop in Rome. When he was a small boy, Metastasio liked to make up poems and say them in the streets near his house. His parents were poor and could not send him to school. When he was 10 years old, they sent him to work for a goldsmith (a person who makes things out of gold). One day a rich lawyer named Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina heard Metastasio saying his poems. He adopted Metastasio and paid for him to go to school. He also changed the boy's name to Pietro Metastasio. Gravina died when Metastasio was 20 years old and left all his money to him. Metastasio wrote a long poem in memory of his adopted father. It was called "" ("The Road of ").