It was in his time that Romeo and Juliet are said to have lived.
He is the Magyarizer of Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra, Othello, Macbeth, Henry VIII., Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet and Tempest, as also of some of the best pieces of Burns, Moore, Byron, Shelley, Milton, Beranger, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Goethe and others.
During these years he painted several Florentine subjects- "Tybalt and Romeo," "The Death of Brunelleschi," a cartoon of "The Pest in Florence according to Boccaccio," and "The Reconciliation of the Montagues and the Capulets."
Among the works produced for the first time or rehearsed with a view to the furtherance of musical art were Wagner's Tannhduser, Der fliegende Hollander, Das Liebesmahl der Apostel, and Eine Faust Overture, Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini, the Symphonie Fantastique, Harold en Italie, Romeo et Juliette, La Damnation de Faust, and L'Enfance du Christ - the last two conducted by the composer - Schumann's Genoveva, Paradise and the the music to Manfred and to Faust, Weber's Euryanthe, Schubert's Alfonso and Estrella, Raff's Kanig Alfred, Cornelius's Der Barbier von Baghdad and many more.
At age 21 he was cast as Benvolio in Franco Zeffirelli's film adaption of Romeo and Juliet.