If one turns off of Michaelerplatz onto Kohlmarkt and looks up at the building facade on the right, one will notice a memorial plaque: “In this building | lived and died | Pietro Metastasio.” As imperial court poet, Metastasio authored librettos that provided the textual basis for hundreds of operas—and Antonio Salieri, our jubilarian of 2025, was among those who made use of his texts. Metastasio was hence not just an authority where literature was concerned but also a key intellectual node in mid-18th-century Vienna.