Antonio Lucio Vivaldi came into the world on today’s date in 1678 a few days after an earthquake shook Venice. The newborn was baptized immediately–just in case little Antonio’s first day also turned out to be his last.

Vivaldi’s father was a violinist, and even though Antonio quickly became a virtuoso on that instrument himself, he became a Roman Catholic priest.

Vivaldi complained of chest pains whenever he said Mass–a medical excuse that allowed him to forego his priestly duties and to concentrate on writing music, including dozens of operas and hundreds of concertos.

By his mid-40s, Vivaldi was a major figure on the European musical scene, but his fortunes gradually took a turn for the worse. The Church ordered him to stop composing music for the theater and, for heaven’s sake, to stop gadding around Europe in the company of female opera singers!

Vivaldi came to Vienna in 1740, hoping to find a court position with the Austrian Emperor Charles VI, a big fan of his music, but after eating some bad mushrooms, the Emperor died. And the following year, Vivaldi himself died–from an internal infection, not an earthquake–at age 63 and heavily in debt.