Life

Rosanna Scalfi was a gondola

Gondola

The gondola is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian Lagoon. For centuries gondolas were the chief means of transportation and most common watercraft within Venice. In modern times the iconic boats still have a role in public transport in...

 singer of Venetian

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 arie di battello, and was taken as a singing student by Italian nobleman, magistrate, writer and composer Benedetto Marcello

Benedetto Marcello

Benedetto Marcello was a Venetian composer, writer, advocate, magistrate, and teacher.-Life:...

 about 1723. The two were secretly wed in a religious ceremony on 20 May 1728, but his marriage to a commoner was unlawful and they never completed the civil requirements. After Marcello died of tuberculosis in 1739, the marriage was declared null by the state and Rosanna was unable to inherit his estate. Left destitute, she filed suit in 1742 against Benedetto's brother Alessandro Marcello

Alessandro Marcello

Alessandro Marcello was an Italian nobleman, poet, philosopher, mathematician and musician.-Biography:...

, seeking financial support.

She appeared as Arbace in Carl Paganelli

Carl Paganelli

Carl Paganelli is an American football official in the National Football League since the 1999 NFL season, who wears uniform number 124. As an umpire, Paganelli is notable for working two Super Bowls, Super Bowl XXXIX and Super Bowl XLI, in a span of three years. He has two brothers who...

’s Artaserse

Artaserse

Artaserse is the name of a number of Italian operas, all based on a text by Metastasio. Artaserse is the Italian form of the name of a Persian king, Artaxerxes....

 at St. Salvatore during the Ascension season that same year. Marcello composed a set of 12 cantatas for alto and basso continuo, writing some of the texts, as well.

Rosanna Marcello appears as a character in Joachim Raff

Joachim Raff

Joseph Joachim Raff was a German-Swiss composer, teacher and pianist.-Biography:Raff was born in Lachen in Switzerland. His father, a teacher, had fled there from Württemberg in 1810 to escape forced recruitment into the military of that southwestern German state that had to fight for Napoleon in...

's 1878 opera Benedetto Marcello, sung by mezzo-soprano. Her works have been recorded and released on CD, including Venice: A Musical Journey: Tour of the City's Past & Present (2005) Naxos.