Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (March 4, 1678 – July 28, 1741), nicknamed il Prete Rosso ("The Red Priest"), was a Baroque music composer and Venetian priest, as well as a famous virtuoso violinist, born and raised in the Republic of Venice.
The Four Seasons, a series of four violin concerti, is his best-known work and a highly popular Baroque piece.
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 The music is based on the “Juditha Triumphans” composed by Antonio Vivaldi, famous Venetian musician to celebrate the Venetian victory in Corfù, to free that island from the siege of 1716: the rhythm in 3/8, majestic and yet atypical for a national anthem recalls the originality of Veneti who have often been able to “break the mould” and reach new outcomes. The arrangement and the addition of some bars to the piece of music, originally written for Latin lyrics, have adapted the orchestration for an anthem in vèneto language: the original musical virtuosities have been made lighter so that the anthem can be sung easily by all, although retaining its original structure.
The lyrics is made by general venetian words, most of them shared by Veronese Venetian (veneto veronese), Central Venetian (veneto centrale) and Venetian proper (veneziano): the endings –r –l are typical of the venecian, veronese, trevisan and bellunese varieties. For the sake of rhyme and metrics, specific forms of some variety have been employed (fondaminti, cei, fon, fen, fiorire).
Some of them appear together thus representing the unity of the Veneto people: the combination fen fiorire and the verse fon sù i fondaminti solve problemes of metrics (fon e fen are monosyllabic) and rhyme (fondaminti rhymes with vinti) but at the same time represent the unity of Veneti from one tip to the other of the land. The language’s richness of shades, basically one and the same language, is a medium which represents the shading of the different local specificities which made Vèneto and enrich its territory.
Like many anthems, this is not a composition “against the enemy” but an anthem for the people. The music was written by a Veneto composer on behalf of the former Republic of Venice; now the lyrics represent the importance of the tradition which provides the resources to build a new tomorrow; quickly depicts the typical values of the Vèneto people like the aptitude for work and for solidarity which in the past have already been recognized to the Veneti emigrating around the world; the verb “fiorire” translates both “flourishing” and “flowering” representing the industrial and urban (re)development together with a social and environmental growth since the vèneto people has always been living between land and water.
Finally a reference to the Lion to defend peace as well as freedom.
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