His flood of operas link Rossini to the Risorgimento meanwhile bringing into play such unexpected protagonists as the marble-breasted Paolina Bonaparte, her nephew Louis-Napoléon and the sympathetically exiled Empress Teresa Cristina of Brazil as well great artists like Rubini, Pasta, Giovanni David, Marianna Barbieri-Nini and the Marchisio sisters. Copious endnotes offer the real mechanics behind the obscure death of Bellini in a Parisian suburb, uncover intrigues with vindictive poets, his fraught relations with his birthplace, rivals, geriatric predecessors and publishers, wives, mistresses, ending less peaceably with critics and scholars. The tenth download - a detailed catalogue of his works both sacred and profane - aims to be definitive