of Poppea"), performed shortly before the composer's death in 1643. Creation Libretto [[File:OdysseyPopeTP1752.jpg|thumb|220px|alt= Open ancient book, showing on the left page a bust of a bearded man, on the right the title page giving the following information: "The Odyssey of Homer, transalted from the Greek. Vol. I, London. Printed for Henry Lintot MDCCLII" |18th-century edition of Homer's Odyssey, the source of the libretto for Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria]] Giacomo Badoaro (1602–1654) was a prolific poet in the Venetian dialect who was a member of the Accademia degli Incogniti, a group of free-thinking intellectuals interested in promoting musical theatre in Venice—Badoaro himself held a financial interest in the Teatro Novissimo. Il ritorno was his first libretto; he would later, in 1644, write another Ulysses-based libretto for Francesco Sacrati. The text of Il ritorno, originally written in five acts but later reorganised as three, is a generally faithful adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, Books 13–23, with some characterisations altered or expanded. Badoaro may have been influenced in his treatment of the story by the 1591 play Penelope by Giambattista della Porta. The libretto was written with the express purpose of tempting Monteverdi to enter the world of Venetian opera, and it evidently captured the elderly composer's imagination. Badoaro and Monteverdi used a classical story to illustrate the human condition of their own times. The Monteverdi scholar Ellen Rosand has identified 12 versions of the published libretto that have been discovered in the years since the first performance. Most of these appear to be 18th-century copies, possibly from a single source; some are literary versions, unrelated to any theatrical performances. All but one of the 12 identify Badoaro as the author, while the other gives no name. Only two refer to Monteverdi as the composer, though this is not significant—composers' names were rarely given on printed librettos. The texts are all generally the same in each case, and all differ from the one surviving copy of Monteverdi's musical score, which has three acts instead of five, a different prologue, a different ending, and many scenes and passages either omitted or rearranged. Some of the libretto copies locate the opera's first performance at Teatro San Cassiano, although Teatro SS Giovanni e Paolo is now generally accepted as the opening venue. Composition It is not known when Monteverdi received the libretto from Badoaro, but this was presumably during or before 1639 since the work was