Abstract Just as there are four principals-Rodolfo, Marcello, Schaunard, Colline-in Puccini’s La boheme, so there were four principals in its creation: the professional librettist Luigi illica (1857-1919), the playwright and man of letters Giuseppe Giacosa (1847-1906), the publisher Giulio Ricardi (1840-1912), so prominent in the genesis of Verdi’s Ote//o (see p. 230f above), and of course the composer himself, Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). Ricardi served as a sort of court of appeals during the sometimes heated squabbles concerning the ultimate shape this opera, based on Henry Murger’s Scenes de la vie de boheme (1851), was to assume. lllica undertook the drafting of the scenario, with important interventions by Puccini. Giacosa took care of the versification and the smaller details, putting on the final touches, though in one of the letters below he is heard complaining that none of his touches ever seemed to be final. Between the first mention of the opera in 1893 (in connection with a dispute that arose between Puccini and Leoncavallo, who was also at work on the same subject) and its first performance under Toscanini in Turin on 1 February 1896, the correspondence between the two librettists, the publisher, and the composer flowed thick and fast.