This engaging new biography chronicles the journeys of the teenage musical prodigy with his father to Italy, the cradle of opera. Their travels took them to the cities of Milan, Florence, Rome, Venice, Bologna, and Naples, brought them into contact with many of the most important musical figures of the day and culminated in the operas Mitridate, Re di Ponto, Lucio Silla, and Ascanio in Alba, all composed before Mozart's sixteenth birthday.Iwo and Pamela Zaluski's sources include contemporary documentation and the Mozarts' correspondence. The authors have also undertaken considerable research into the routes that father and son took through Italy, thus bringing the young composer's travels vividly to life.