Genoa's violin demon published, then went broke
Niccolò Paganini, born 27 October 1782, set the template for modern violin fireworks and left twenty-four Caprices as homework for every later virtuoso. Tours from La Scala to Vienna made him a European myth. A failed Paris casino in 1836 ruined him before his 1840 death.
His father Antonio, a struggling ship chandler who sold mandolins on the side, started him on mandolin at five; he switched to violin by seven and soon outgrew local teachers. In Parma, Alessandro Rolla heard him and sent him straight on to Ferdinando Paer and then Paer's own teacher, Gasparo Ghiretti. When the French invaded in 1796 the family retreated to a country house at Romairone, where he mastered the guitar, an instrument he kept for private playing and called his constant companion on tour.
At eighteen he became first violin of the Republic of Lucca, already notorious for gambling and womanising. After Napoleon handed Lucca to his sister Elisa in 1805, Paganini served her court, tutored her husband Felice, and had an affair with Elisa herself, before going freelance in 1809. An 1813 concert at La Scala broke him beyond regional fame and sparked rivalries with Louis Spohr and Charles Lafont. Pope Leo XII gave him the Golden Spur in 1827, and a tour from Vienna in 1828 to Strasbourg in 1831 made him a continental star.
Illness dogged him: syphilis diagnosed by 1822 and treated with mercury and opium, tuberculosis in 1834, and later speculation about Marfan or Ehlers–Danlos syndrome. He quit performing in 1834 and, contrary to the legend of a secretive wizard, published his music and methods and took pupils. A Paris casino he opened in 1836 failed at once, forcing him to auction his instruments.
He died in Nice in 1840 after refusing last rites as premature. Rumours of a pact with the devil helped deny him Church burial, and his body was not finally interred at Parma until 1876.
Source: Niccolò Paganini
