Verdi: Man and Musician His Biography with Especial Reference to His English Experiences — Reading Notes

ncole, an unpretentious settlement, sparsely inhabited, hard by Busseto, which, in its turn, is at the foot of the Appenine range, and some seventeen miles north-west of Parma, in Italy. The red-letter day, since such it deservedly is, on which this universal melodist first saw the light was the 10th October 1813. Terrible events shadowed his infancy. In 1814 the village was sacked by the invading allies. Then the frightened women took refuge in the church--safe, as they believed, near the image of the Virgin--until the soldiers forced the doors, and slew women and children till the floor reeked with blood. One woman, with infant at breast, flew to the belfry and hid there, thus saving herself and her child. The child was the infant Verdi!

Whenever a son of man is born into the world who, in the mysterious course of events, turns out to be what mankind calls "great," there is inevitably a community jealous to claim ownership of the illustrious one, alive or dead. The subject may have lingered through troublous long seasons, craving vainly for the stimulus of even scanty recognition. He has only to become "great" to find hosts of persevering friends. Verdi having risen to great eminence, more than one locality has claimed him. He has been styled "_il cigno di Busseto_,"[1] and "_il maestro Parmigiano_"; but he was neither the swan of Busseto nor the master of the town of cheeses. Roncole alone is entitled to the sonship of Verdi; and as both Parma and her smaller sister town, Busseto, have disputed his parentage, the point of interest has been very properly investigated. The result is that the question has been decided once and for all. A certificate written in Latin has been traced, which establishes beyond dispute both the time and place of Verdi's birth. The following is the text of the original document:--

"Anno Dom. 1813 die 11 Octobris--Ego Carolus Montanari Praepositus Runcularum baptizavi Infantem hodie vespere hora sexta natum ex Carolo Verdi q^m Josepho et ex Aloisia Utini filia Caroli, hujus parocciae jugalibus, cui nomina imposui--Fortuninus Joseph, Franciscus--Patrini fuere Dominus Petrus Casali q^d Felicis et Barbara Bersani filia Angioli, ambo hujus parocciae."

This dog Latin, translated into English, runs as follows:--"In the year of our Lord 1813, on the 11th day of October, I, Charles Montanari, placed in charge of Roncole, did at the sixth hour of this evening baptize the infant son of Charles Verdi and Louisa Utini, daughter of Charles, married in this parish, under the name of Fortuninus Joseph Franciscus. The sponsors were Father Peter Casali q^d Felicis and Barbara Bersani, daughter of Angiolus, both of this parish."[2]

The abode in which the infant Verdi first opened his eyes was one of the best known and most frequented among a cluster of cottages inhabited by labouring folk who found work and small wage in the immediate neighbourhood of Roncole, a three miles' stretch from Busseto. It was a tumble-down stone-and-mortar-mixture building of low pitch.

_Padre_ Carlo Verdi and his good wife Luigia Utini were the licensed keepers of this small _osteria_, whereat wine, spirits, and malt, with their close relations pipes and tobacco, were matters of trade between Boniface or _la signora_ and the frugal _contadini_ who lived in and about Roncole. Wine and music! Another illustration of the curious union between harmony and alcohol--a connection which harmless as it really is, has been discouraged and taken fearfully to heart by a sensitive sort of people, but which has never yet been satisfactorily disproved or accounted for by all the Good Templar philosophy. Bacchanalian aids were not the only commodities dealt in by the honest, though illiterate Carlo Verdi and his brave wife. The inn stood also as the local _dépôt_ for such unromantic necessaries of existence as sugar, coffee, matches, oil, cheese, and sausage--all indispensable items in housekeeping, even in Italy.

The business air pervading the home of Verdi's childhood seems not to have affected his young mind, and, pecuniarily profitable as such an establishment for the sale of the liquids and solids of life may have been, the future musician does not appear to have shown any disposition towards becoming a vendor of unromantic necessaries or alcoholic unnecessaries of life. Happily, the fire of genius--the _feu sacré_--was in Verdi.

Verdi _maggiore_ was distinctly a retail trader, running, with great good-nature, what are vulgarly known as "ticks" with the Roncolese. He went to market once a week, to buy in wholesale quantities grocery of one Antonio Barezzi, storekeeper, distiller, etc., who, as circumstances proved, was to figure prominently in the Verdi _dénouement_.