On withdrawing his pupil from the exercise of this fascinating art. Gravina became aware that his education could not be carried on with success amidst the pleasures and idleness of his life at Rome; and he sent him to study under his cousin Camporese, who lived near the ancient Cortona, a town of Magna Græcia, famous in antiquity for its schools of philosophy. Metastasio was very happy at this period of his life; and, in a letter written at an advanced age, he recurs to it with yearning fondness. "Of how many dear and pleasing ideas, my friend," he writes to Don Saverio Mattei, "you have awakened the recollection, by causing me to go over in my thoughts the happy time I spent, not less usefully than delightfully, between boyhood and adolescence, in Magna Græcia. I saw again as if they were present all those objects which pleased me so much at that time. Again I inhabited the little chamber, in which the sound of the breakers of the neighbouring sea so often lulled me into the sweetest sleep; and, by force of my imagination, I revisited in my boat the shores of neighbouring Scalea; and the names and aspects of many places recurred to me, before forgotten. I heard again the venerable voice of the renowned philosopher Camporese; who, stooping to instruct one so young, led me, as it were, by the hand among the vortexes of the then reigning Descartes, of whom he was a strenuous advocate, and attracted my boyish curiosity, by showing me in wax, as if in a game, how globules were formed from atoms, and filling me with admiration of the bewitching experiments of philosophy. It seems to me as if I again saw him labouring to persuade me that his dog was formed upon the same principle as a watch; and that the trinal dimension is a sufficient definition of solid bodies. And I behold him smile, when, having kept me long plunged in a dark reverie, by forcing me to doubt of every thing, he perceived that I breathed again, on his assertion, 'I think, therefore, I am;' the invincible proof of a certainty which I had despaired of ever again attaining." Camporese died, unfortunately, in the midst of these studies, and Metastasio returned to Rome.
It was soon after his lot to lose his adopted father, Gravina. He expresses, both in letters written at the time, and in after years, his deep grief on the death of his benefactor. Gravina kept his word, of considering him as his son; and, with the exception of a legacy to his mother, left him heir to all that he possessed, to the amount of about fifteen thousand crowns. Finding himself thus independent, and even rich in his own eyes, Metastasio gave himself up to the study of poetry. Hitherto the rules of Gravina had limited his reading: now he emerged into freedom; and, having been before allowed only to peruse Ariosto, among the Italians, he read the "Jerusalem Delivered" for the first time. He was enchanted by the order and majesty of a single action, conducted with art, and terminated with dignity. The grandeur of the style, the vivid colouring and fervid imagination of Tasso, transported him with delight. Ovid was also an especial favourite; and it is recorded that he regarded Marini with an approbation which that poet, indeed, deserves, but of which, as the original corrupter of the Italian style, and the leader of the degenerate Seicentisti, he is usually deprived.