Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina was an Italian man of letters and jurist. He was born at Roggiano Gravina, a small town near Cosenza, in Calabria. He was the adoptive father of the poet Metastasio.

Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.