Vincenzo Bellini’s short but intense melodramatic career spanned exactly a decade. A detailed reconstruction of the preparatory phase of Bellini’s artistic career is made difficult by the almost complete loss of the papers which the musician kept with his parents. The most reliable information is therefore to be found in writings by Francesco Florimo, a young man from Calabria whom Bellini met as a fellow-student, which was to become the musician’s lifelong brotherly friend and after his death his main biographer. Thanks to him we have a list of the ten compositions had taken with him to Naples to favour his admission to the Conservatory. Among them are some of these works for soprano and orchestra the cavatina “Sì per te, Gran Nume eterno”, the Allegro in the guise of a cabaletta “E nello stringerti a questo core”, and the scena and aria “Gioite amiche contrade” (1815-1818). The Symphony in E flat major is dated 1823, from the introductory section of which Bellini was to take material for the symphonies of Adelson e Salvini and Il?Pirata.