A nicely presented ensemble with an original early engraved portrait. Rossini writes a short note to send money and well wishes to a friend and his family. He mentions the monumento, which may be a reference to the monument of the poet Torquato Tasso in Sorrento. Rossini had provided a chorus for its unveiling earlier that year.

The 1830's and 1840's were difficult decades for Rossini, who had not long before entered into an abrupt and early retirement. He mourned the deaths of his parents, was constantly ill, and rarely worked. Adapting the famous "Coro dei Bardi" from La donna del Lago for the Tasso monument unveiling in March 1844 was a notable exception.

Rossini passed that summer in Paris and Bologna, cities in which he remained enormously popular. Just before writing this letter, he enjoyed a great celebration on his name day, as later described by Costanza Tibaldi (daughter of tenor Carlo Tibaldi): The band played five of Rossini's pieces, and the "evvivas" for Rossini were general…When the music was over, the table was laid for the forty performers, including Rossini himself, and there the "evvivas" were repeated.