«Evviva li matti!…». Stravaganze private di un allievo romano di Liszt: lettere di Pietro Boccaccini a Maria Giuli

In the present essay twelve letters by the Roman student of Liszt, Pietro Boccaccini, are quoted in their entirety. They were written between August 1875 and December 1877 and addressed to his friend and pianist, Maria Giuli in Rome. The corpus of letters herein transcribed is kept at the Post-Unity Historic Archive of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome. The analysis of this unpublished correspondence has led to new starting points of investigation into the biography of the Roman musician, providing more details about his life and at the same time indirectly enlightening the figure of Maria Giuli, herself a pupil of Liszt’s in Rome. These missives depict a specific moment of Boccacini’s life, precisely the years he spent in South Italy while perfecting his piano expertise under the guidance of Beniamino Cesi. The main topic of this correspondence is, in fact, Boccaccini’s frantic attempt to attain a solid piano technique. A deeper between-the-lines reading of these letters also allows considerations on what the relationship might have been between the Master, Liszt, and the student Boccacini: it provides hints that unfortunately are not validated in the collection of letters by Liszt and yet it urges a more thorough research on a chapter of the life of Liszt, during his stay in Rome, very poorly investigated till now.