Giacomo Meyerbeer his family. He arrived in Italy at the beginning of 1816, after visits to Paris and London, where he heard Cramer play. In Paris, he wrote to a friend, 'I go from museum to museum, library to library, theatre to theatre, with the restlessness of the Wandering Jew'. During his years in Italy Meyerbeer became acquainted with, and impressed by, the works of his contemporary Gioachino Rossini, who by 1816, at the age of 24, was already director of both major opera houses in Naples and in the same year premiered his operas "The Barber of Seville" and "Otello". Meyerbeer
Gioachino Rossini twelve other Italian composers on a "Requiem for Rossini", to be performed on the first anniversary of Rossini's death, conducted by Angelo Mariani. The music was written, but the performance was abandoned shortly before its scheduled premiere. Verdi re-used the "Libera me, Domine" he had written for the Rossini Requiem in his 1872 "Requiem for Manzoni". In 1989 the conductor Helmuth Rilling recorded the original "Requiem for Rossini" in its world premiere. In 1900, Giuseppe Cassioli created a monument to Rossini in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence. The Library of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels possesses an important collection