This section of the portal currently contains the letters written by Verdi to his friends Cesare De Sanctis, Vincenzo Luccardi and Giuseppe Piroli, held in the archives of the National Academy of the Lincei, 
together with those written to the impresario Giulio Ricordi and which are held in Casa Ricordi’s Historical Archives. This section will be enlarged in the future with the arrival of other letters written by Verdi and addressed to other correspondents.
“ (.....) and in the meantime the Government is increasing taxes, building unnecessary rail roads while pretending to give work to the population? This is really ridiculous. For God’s sake if you have millions, spend them all and use them for the work on the rivers before they all overflow! God have pity on us, in whose hands are we!.........the ambitious or those of the ignorant.” These words are not those of a militant Italian twenty-first century ecologist, but the bitter considerations that Verdi gave vent to in a letter written on the 11th June 1879 to his friend Giuseppe Piroli. The Verdi Epistolary – precisely because it is full of surprising, very modern points of view held by Verdi, in which he described the realities of his time – plays an essential role in a biographical profile centred upon the very complete human being behind his incredible artistic production. From his splendid letter in defence of Giuseppina Strepponi – victim of the Bussetani’s bigoted prejudices –to the jocular references to his billiard games with his friend Luccardi, the Verdi that emerges through his exchange of correspondence is an extraordinarily complex man well outside any predefined strict definition. Alongside the more intimate, or politically involved, letters are those that Verdi exchanged with his colleagues (librettists, impresarios, singers, publishers) giving us a privileged view of the composer’s craftsmanship and his way of working, in a continual flux between terrifying criticisms, incomprehension and rows, together with generous friendships and philanthropic outbursts.
To complete this section it should be remembered that the National Institute of Verdian Studies is publishing a critical edition of his correspondence of which, at the time of writing, eight volumes are already complete. These are respectively: Verdi- Boito (Parma 1978, volume 2), Verdi-Ricordi, 1880-1881 (Parma 1988), Verdi- Ricordi, 1882-1885 (Parma 1994), Verdi-Cammarano 1843-1852 (Parma 2001), Verdi-Ricordi, 1886-1888 (Parma 2010), Verdi-Somma (Parma 2003), Verdi-Luccardi (Parma 2008), Verdi-Morosini, 1842-1901 (Parma 2013). For further bibliographical references please consult www.studiverdiani.it.