Cesare della Valle


Cesare della Valle was Duke of Ventignano. He is best known today as a playwright and librettist.
He wrote the libretto to Giacomo Rossini's opera Maometto II, from his own drama tragedy Anna Erizo. Both were based on real-life Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II who took Negroponte from the Venetians in 1470.
That opera was completely reworked a few years later into Le siège de Corinthe, but based on the same characters and story created by della Valle.