The Gottarelli Foundation resumes its activities after the summer break with the first event scheduled for Saturday, September 9, 2023, at 9:00 PM in Verziere delle Monache Park, Via Caterina Sforza 5, Imola. The event, titled "Emotions in Music" will feature the duo Antonella Nuti, vocals, and Loris Ceroni, bassist. They will take the audience on a musical journey that will come to life in a delightful and captivating concert repertoire. An evening of music featuring great Italian hits from the 1960s to the present day.
ANTONELLA NUTI - Her career started from piano bars until she became the singer representing the 'history of Romagna,' but not only that: she has several solo recordings (pop genre) to her credit and has also appeared as a backing vocalist in many of her husband Loris Ceroni's productions.
LORIS CERONI - Born in 1955, son of the maestro Leo Ceroni, Loris was raised harmoniously. He studied classical piano for 8 years in Imola and later enrolled at the Giacomo Rossini Conservatory (Pesaro) as a double bass student. In just 4 years, he obtained his diploma with honors, also winning a prestigious competition at the Maggio Fiorentino. He then began working as a session bassist in various recording studios, recording for artists such as Mina, Al Bano e Romina Power, and many others. From there, he embarked on a journey of world tours with Gianni Togni, Angelo Branduardi, and Miguel Bosé. At the same time, he started dedicating himself to the world of recording with the aim of recording his own material and his father's compositions. During the time spent on tour with Miguel Bosé, he managed to be introduced by the latter to the world of Latin American music production, and that is where his career as a music producer began.

The event scheduled for Wednesday, October 4, at 9:00 PM, in the Gottarelli Foundation Hall, Via C. Sforza 13, Imola, is titled "Axe and Cleaver" . It will be a conversation with Gianfranco Miro Gori about his latest book. The author will be accompanied by his distinguished colleague, Dr. Massimo Ortalli, President of the Historical Archive of the Italian Anarchist Federation.
Gianfranco Miro Gori's book, Axe and Cleaver - a title that reproduces a greeting motto of the Romagnoli anarchists in the 1870s - narrates the stories of thirteen Romagnoli anarchists. Some are well-known, like Andrea Costa and Amilcare Cipriani, while others have been rightfully brought back from oblivion, such as Pietro Cesare Ceccarelli and Carlo Valdinoci. The book also presents a portrait of the Italian anarchist movement of which the Romagnoli were significant and not merely as protagonists.
One of the thirteen biographies is dedicated to the Imolese anarchist, Andrea Costa, one of the most important figures in the early period of Italian anarchism. Costa participated at a very young age (he was born in 1851) as the secretary in the first congress of the Italian International held in Rimini in August 1872, marked by anarchism. Later, he played prominent roles in almost all the events of the Bakuninist movement in Italy and Europe. Until the famous letter in August 1879 to the "friends of Romagna," where he announced, causing furious controversies, his adherence, so to speak, to the parliamentary path while maintaining anarchy as the ultimate goal of his practice.
However, the focus is not solely on the prominent figure of Andrea Costa. The anarchist movement in Imola is extensive and strong, so much so that during the two main attempted uprisings between 1874 (Bologna) and 1877 (Matese), the people of Imola were significantly present. In the first case, the insurgents in Bologna, led by Bakunin himself, relied on the support of two columns, one of which started from Imola, led by Antonio Cornacchia, known as Bavaresa, with a strong contingent of 150 men.
In the second case, which saw fewer than thirty men eventually taking part, the majority were from Imola. Here is the list with the almost inevitable nicknames in dialect: Giuseppe Bennati, known as Mezdé, 37 years old, stucco worker; Luigi Castellazzi, known as Zuda, 31 years old, shoemaker; Ugo Conti, known as Flema, 25 years old, butcher; Antonio Cornacchia, known as Bavaresa, 41 years old, bricklayer; Sante Celoni, stonecutter; Francesco Ginnasi, 18 years old, student, son of Count Ginnasi; Luigi Poggi, known as Titon, 31 years old, bricklayer; Domenico Poggi, known as Sbuzema, 24 years old, bricklayer, brother of the previous one. Another Imolese, Pietro Gagliardi, a shoemaker, was arrested before the uprising.
Free admission

The event scheduled for Wednesday, November 15, at 9:00 PM, in the Gottarelli Foundation Hall, Via C. Sforza 13, Imola, is titled "Giulia, Enrichetta, Teresa, and ...: The Women of Alessandro Manzoni." It will be a conversation through images with Professor Fabrizia Fiumi.
On the 150th commemoration of Alessandro Manzoni's death, we will delve into the life of the author of "The Betrothed" through visual materials. From Milan to Paris, and Florence, Don Lisander lived a long life between the 18th and 19th centuries in a household populated by women whom we wish to know better this evening.
Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Manzoni, simply known as Alessandro Manzoni, was born in Milan on March 7, 1785, the son of Giulia Beccaria and Giovanni Verri.
However, an extramarital relationship exists between his parents, leading Giulia Beccaria's husband to acknowledge the child as his own to avoid scandal: it is about Pietro Manzoni, a member of a noble family from Lecco, thus bestows upon the child titles like Don Alessandro, Don Lisander, and Lord of Moncucco.
Moreover, tensions arose between Manzoni and his wife, leading them to separate early on. His mother moved to Paris, while Alessandro attended the Collegio dei Padri Somaschi in Merate from 1791 and later joined the Collegio dei Padri Barnabiti in 1796. These were years of strict and severe education that made him proclaim himself an atheist but also brought him into contact with great figures of Milanese culture, such as Vincenzo Monti and Giuseppe Parini.
In 1805, Alessandro Manzoni moved to France, where his mother lived with her new partner, Carlo Imbonati. However, Carlo Imbonati passed away before Alessandro's arrival, bringing Giulia Beccaria closer to her son in the aftermath of the mourning.
In the French capital, Alessandro Manzoni was also introduced to the intellectual elite and, three years later, married Enrichetta Blondel in a Calvinist ceremony (with whom he had ten children, eight of whom died between 1811 and 1873). However, by 1810, the couple converted to the Catholic current of Jansenism, and in 1820, they permanently returned to Milan.
In Milan, Alessandro Manzoni, who by then suffered from depression, panic attacks, and agoraphobia, sought to overcome his early family losses by dedicating himself to his major prose works and thoughtful reflections on historiography and the Italian language. However, his efforts were soon tested by the death of his wife in 1833. It took four years before the author remarried, this time to Teresa Borri, and subsequently moved with her to Tuscany from 1852 to 1856.
The 1850s marked a period of significant personal and collective changes, leading Alessandro Manzoni to receive recognition for his novel "The Betrothed" and be appointed a Senator of the newly established Kingdom of Italy in 1860. Unfortunately, just one year later, his second wife also passed away and never knew about her husband's appointment to the Commission for the Unification of the Language, to which Manzoni presented the report "On the Unity of Language and the Means of Spreading It" six years later.
On January 6, 1873, Alessandro Manzoni suffered a head injury after hitting it on the way out of the church of San Fedele in Milan. His health rapidly deteriorated due to meningitis, leading to his passing on May 22 of the same year. His funeral, held with great pomp, was attended by high-ranking state officials and dozens of intellectuals. On the first commemoration of his death, composer Giuseppe Verdi conducted a Requiem Mass composed in his honour at the Milanese church of San Marco.