Puccini, Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria, was an Italian opera composer nicknamed "the best composer of Italian opera since Verdi." Puccini's early compositions were inspired by late-nineteenth-century Romantic Italian opera. Later, he became a leading exponent of the practical verismo form, which he successfully established. La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), and Turandot (1924) are among Puccini's most well-known pieces, many of which have become standards.