Gioachino Rossini wrote 39 operas, including The Barber of Seville, and reset the standards for both comic and serious opera. Born in Pesaro in 1792 to a trumpeter father and a singer mother, he was composing by twelve. Between 1810 and 1823 he wrote 34 operas for Italian stages, a pace that encouraged formulas and self-borrowing. His last opera, Guillaume Tell, premiered in Paris in 1829, and he wrote little large-scale music for the next four decades. The reasons for his withdrawal were never fully explained, though ill-health, his wealth and the rise of spectacular grand opera are the usual suggestions. In Paris he later hosted famous Saturday salons, and his last major work was the Petite messe solennelle of 1863.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.