Bellini’s correspondence includes about 530 letters, and unfolds from the Supplica of May 1819 to Stefano Notarbartolo, Duke of Sammartino - with the request for a study grant at the Real Collegio di Musica San Sebastiano in Naples - to the last short messages of September 1835, written by the musician right before his premature death. However, the database is continuously updated, open to additions and modifications thanks to the constant findings of new autograph letters, some unpublished, others known through transcriptions not always faithful to the original text.

The first instalment of this digital collection features 50 letters by Bellini, selected for their documentary and musicological interest and also published in English translation. Alongside them, the website hosts the entire correspondence between the composer and his publisher Giovanni Ricordi, which not only illuminates an intense human and professional relationship but also bears witness to a fundamental moment in the history of opera in its arduous journey towards modernity.