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.
Statue of Metastasio in Rome, in front of the Santa Maria in Vallicella
Opere drammatiche, oratorj sacri e poesie liriche (1737)
An epithalamium is a poem written specifically for the bride on the way to her marital chamber. This form continued in popularity through the history of the classical world; the Roman poet Catullus wrote a famous epithalamium, which was translated from or at least inspired by a now-lost work of Sappho. According to Origen, the Song of Songs might be an epithalamium on the marriage of Solomon with the Pharaoh's daughter.
Titlepage of In Nuptias illustrium Joan. de Zamoscio, by Jan Kochanowski, Cracow, 1583
Venus and Cupid, Lorenzo Lotto, 1530, Metropolitan Museum of Art