ABSTRACT
Costa was born in Geneva, probably in 1808, and brought up in Naples. 1 His father’s family was descended from Jews who had embraced Catholicism at some stage after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. By the early nineteenth-century both sides of his family were members of the Catholic musical establishment in Naples. His father, Pasquale Costa, was a minor church composer, whose title of ‘cavaliere’ probably indicated family aspiration rather than aristocratic status. An uncle, Domenico Tritto, was a composer and maestro di capella at two major churches in Naples. His mother’s father, Giacomo Tritto, was a leading opera composer who later became the Director of the Naples Royal Academy of Music, where Costa received his musical education.
