don Antonio Lucio Vivaldi Home-Page

The main aspects of Vivaldi's biography can be found at the following addresses:
http://www.karadar.it/Dictionary/vivaldi.html
http://utopia.knoware.nl/~jsmeets/cgi-bin/ccd.cgi?comp=vivaldi
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1152/Vivaldi1.html
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/vivaldi.html
http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/vivaldi.html
http://www.oasiskc.net/~bryanc/vivhome.htm
I just add a few curiosities that you cannot find in any biografy.
The complete name of Vivaldi was "don Antonio Lucio Vivaldi", but he was called "signor don Antonio Vivaldi".
The word "signor" stand for "Mr."; "don" means "father", in fact Vivaldi was ordered priest in 1703 and althought he stopped to celebrate Mass after six months, he remained a priest till death on July 27th 1741.
The first name "Antonio" was used for people born in critical situations: on March 4th 1678 (7 years before J.S.Bach, G.Handel and D.Scarlatti) there was an earthquake in Venice and Vivaldi was baptized by a midwife because in danger of death.
The second name "Lucio" was the name of the saint of the day. St. Lucio was a pope of the third century of whom nothing is known. He was the patron of milkmen and was celebrated by Catholic Church on March 4th till 1969.
"Vivaldi" was the surname of his father Gian Battista who was a barber with the hobby of playing violine and moved from Brescia to Venice a few years before 1678. There he played violine as a professionist in the Chapel of St. Marc (today the Basilica of St. Marc). This fact make a bit less unlikely the conjecture (with no evidence) that Antonio Vivaldi was relative of the Vivaldi brothers from Genoa, who tried to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the 14th century but never returned.
The last curiosity is that is documented that Vivaldi lived for two weeks in my city (Trieste) in 1728.

Have a look at the cathalog of my Vivaldi's disks (RV).

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