A playwright, literary critic, poet and librettist, Apostolo Zeno founded the Accademia degli Animosi in Venice; this arcadian colony aimed at combatting the witty attacks which were fashionable in Venice during his life. He composed his first opera, L’Inganni felici, in Venice in 1695; his opera Lucio Vero met with great success in 1700. He was a poet for Charles VI and his historiographer at the court of Vienna; in 1729, Metastasio succeeded him, and Zeno spent the rest of his life in his native Venice.