Antonio Salieri is a character based on Italian composer Antonio Salieri.What most people know of Salieri comes from the highly-fictionalized Amadeus in which he is depicted as a petty man of miniscule talent driven to near-insanity over the genius he recognizes in Mozart. It even mocks Salieri's family. His father did not oppose his son's ambition to become a composer (or die choking on a piece of meat during a family meal). In fact, Salieri's first teacher was his brother, a student of composer Giuseppe Tartini. Nor did the young Antonio offer God his chastity in exchange for greatness and immortality; he married in 1774, and fathered 8 children. Salieri opened his career as Kapellmeister with Le Nozze di Figaro , and performed three of Mozart's masses at the coronation festivities for Leopold II. Mozart noted to his wife that Salieri's reaction to Die Zauberfl Show less «