Pietro Trapassi, also known as Metastasio (1698-1782), was for more than fifty years Caesarean Poet at the imperial court in Vienna. Throughout his life, he had an extensive correspondence with the most illustrious musicians, singers, men of letters and diplomats of his time: the epistolary (consisting of more than 2,600 letters, written between 1715 and 1782) offers a privileged observatory on the history and culture of 18^th century Europe.
The M.E.T.A. Project ("Metastasio's Epistolary Texts Archive"), headed by the DIRAAS Department with the collaboration of scholars from various Italian and European universities, aims to produce a new edition of Metastasio’s epistolary, upgrading Bruno Brunelli's editon (Tutte le opere di Pietro Metastasio, edited by Bruno Brunelli, 5 vols, Milan, Mondadori, 1943-54, Lettere, vols. III-V).
The results of this project, currently still in progress, are published both in digital format, within the platform «Pietro Metastasio. L’archivio delle lettere», as well as in print format, within the series «I carteggi di Metastasio. Testi e studi» (Genova University Press – GUP).