Verdi's birth and birth-place--Dispute as to his township--Baptismal certificate--His parentage--The parents' circumstances--The _osteria_ kept by them--A regular market-man--A mixed business--Verdi's early surroundings and influences--Verdi not a musical wonder or show-child--His natural child-life--Enchanted with street organ--Quiet manner as a child--Acolyte at Roncole Church--Enraptured with the organ music--Is bought a spinet--Practises incessantly--Gratuitous spinet repairs--To school at Busseto--Slender board and curriculum--First musical instruction--An apt pupil.
Verdi was born at Roncole, 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:--