Michele Novaro (; 23 December 1818 – 20 October 1885) was an Italian composer.
Novaro was born on 23 December 1818 in
Genoa
Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...
, where he studied composition and singing at the
Scuola Gratuita di Canto (now the Genoa Conservatory). Novaro is mostly known as the composer of the music of the Italian
national anthem
A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and European ...
, ''
Il Canto degli Italiani
"" (; ) is a patriotic song written by Goffredo Mameli and set to music by Michele Novaro in 1847, currently used as the national anthem of Italy. It is best known among Italians as the "" (; ), after the author of the lyrics, or "" (; ), from ...
'' (lyrics by
Goffredo Mameli), better known in Italy as ''Inno di Mameli'' (Mameli's Hymn).
Novaro was a convinced liberal and offered his compositional talents to the unification cause without deriving any personal benefits. He died poor on 20 October 1885, after a life riddled with financial and health difficulties. He was buried at the
Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa.
References
External links
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1818 births
1885 deaths
19th-century Italian composers
Italian male composers
Composers from Genoa
National anthem writers
19th-century Italian male musicians
Genoa Conservatory alumni
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