Romolo Bacchini

The processing of the cartoon "The Adventures of Pinocchio".

Born Romolo Bachini in Rome, Bacchini, as he later spelled it, was one of the pioneers of Italian silent cinema, directing, and sometimes acting in, more than 50 films. Some have been lost while others were recovered and restored, such as La leggenda dell'edelweiss, of which coils and the original screenplay have been found by researchers of the Museo internazionale del cinema e dello spettacolo (MICS) (International museum of film and entertainment), in 1988.

In 1909 he moved to Naples, where the fledgling movie company Vesuvio Films gave him the artistic direction of its productions. In the capital of Campania he directed many of his movies, among them the historical short film Corradino di Svevia (L'ultimo degli Hohenstaufen), one of the first Italian movies to be set in the Middle Ages.[2]

In 1936, as art director for CAIR (Cartoni Animati Italiani Roma), he directed The Adventures of Pinocchio, which is believed to be the first animated film dedicated to the novel by Carlo Collodi.[3]

An advertising playbill for the operetta "L'incognita dell'oasi" (1920 ca.).

He graduated in composition and direction at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella in Naples, and was a composer (he wrote several operas), director and conductor of the orchestra.[4] He wrote plenty of accompanying music for films and was the first musician in the history of cinema to have composed – in 1905 – specifically created music to accompany a movie ("La Malìa dell'oro", by Filoteo Alberini).[5][6][7][8]

Contemporary and friend of poet and writer Augusto Jandolo, with him he was part of the "Gruppo dei Romanisti" as well as other intellectuals and artists who, during the charming times of Caffé Greco, animated the cultural salons of Rome. He wrote many poetical compositions, revealing himself as particularly inclined into poems, verses and sonnets in Roman dialect. In 1929 he wrote "Er Natale de Roma",[9][10] a poem in blank verse and quatrains, all in Roman dialect, dealing with the birth of Rome and illustrated by the painter-ceramicist Romeo Berardi.