Are you interested in learning about your Italian Heritage?

Here is a short story about a very special person. We hope you will enjoy reading it.

Niccolò (or Nicolò) Paganini was born in Genoa, on October 27, 1782, on Vico Fossa del Colle (later Passo della Gatta Mora) next to the harbor, the third of the six children of Francesco Antonio Maria Paganini and Teresa Bocciardo.

His paternal side of the family was originally from the small town of Carro located in the province of La Spezia about 30 miles from Genoa; Giovanni Battista Paganinia, Niccolò’s grandfather married in 1745 Maria Angela Teresa Gambero and moved to the house on Vico dei Parmiggiani where they had two children, one of whom was Francesco Antonio Maria also known as Antonio, Niccolo’s father.

Antonio was an unsuccessful trader, but he managed to supplement his income through playing music on the mandolin.

At the age of five, Paganini started learning the mandolin from his father, and moved to the violin by the age of seven. He was composing by the age of eight and giving public concerts by the age of twelve.

Given the child’s ability with music and sound, Antonio decided to make him a prodigy by imposing a very strict schedule that left him very little time to play with other children. While he found comfort in his mother’s affection, Niccolò suffered through severe punishments and starvation caused by his father’s rigid daily routines which ultimately left him with a very weak health.

He had a natural genius for music which was enhanced by his love for the violin with which he was able to reproduce the most amazing sounds, from imitating the singing of birds, the voices of animals (from the cat to the donkey), to the tone of other instruments (from the flute to the horn), all these virtuoso abilities to impress his audience.

He enjoyed playing tricks, like playing the majority of a piece on one string after breaking the other three. He astounded audiences with extraordinary difficult techniques and near impossible fingerings and bowings. He was so accomplished on the violin that people would say he'd made a deal with the Devil.

Niccolo’ Paganini became one of the first musicians to tour as a single performer. He played his own compositions which were written to be challenging to him and are considered some of the most difficult pieces for a violinist to play to this day.

His love life was quite adventurous too; women with or without noble origins were very attracted to him. He was incarcerated for 10 days for having seduced a minor and had an illegitimate child, Achilles Cyrus Alexander born on July 23, 1825 in Palermo with a woman he never married, Antonia Bianchi, a singer who had been touring with him. His son traveled with him and studied foreign languages to help him while performing abroad.

His frequent concert schedule, as well as his extravagant lifestyle, eventually took their toll on his health. Paganini died in Nice on May 27, 1840 due to cancer of the larynx. He had already lost his ability to speak, but continued playing the violin the night before he died. It took years before his remains were finally put to rest in 1876, in a cemetery in Parma. In 1893, the Czech violinist, Franz Ondricek, persuaded Paganini's grandson, Attila, to allow a viewing of the violinist's body. After the bizarre episode, Paganini's body was exhumed once again, to a new cemetery in Parma, in 1896.

Niccolò Paganini donated his violin to the City of Genova; a “Guarnieri del Gesù” (1742), which he used to refer to as “my cannon violin”.

Learning about our origins can be an important legacy to our children, after all memories are not used to remember the lost time, but to start again, knowing that losing our roots inevitably leads to a loss in our identity as people who live, think and love.

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