Il monumento Rossini-Colbran alla Certosa di Bologna (The Rossini-Colbran monument at the Certosa of Bologna), in "Il Carrobbio", XXX, 2004, pp.229-236.

Isabella Colbran was born in Madrid on 2nd February 1785 and she was the daughter of Giovanni Colbran, a violin player at the Spanish Chapel. She was one of Girolamo Crescentini’s pupils and she immediately became famous as a talented singer and composer. Gioacchino Rossini’s first opera performed by Colbran was “Elizabeth, the Queen of England”, a 2-act drama with a libretto by Giovanni Schmidt, premiered at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on 4^th October 1815. After the “Elizabeth”, Isabella Colbran was the first performer of all of Rossini’s serious Italian operas, and she would marry him in Castenaso on 16^th March 1822.
Giovanni Colbran had left Spain in the early 1800s to start up his daughter Isabella’s theatrical career, first of all going to  France, and then to Italy. Colbran enjoyed the patronship of the Spanish sovereigns and in Italy he had the patronship of viceroy Eugenio Beauharnais in Milan and of Gioacchino Murat in Naples. In 1812 Giovanni Colbran bought a villa in Castenaso, near Bologna from the Collegio di Spagna which later on was bequeathed to Isabella, who lived there until her death. The villa, which was sold by Rossini in 1851, was destroyed by a fire during the 2^nd World War and today only its well and columns of the entrance gate still remain. On Giovanni Colbran’s death in February 1820, Gioacchino Rossini intended to have an imposing funerary monument built at the Certosa of Bologna.

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