Senesino

Common card · No. 457607

Francesco Bernardi (pronounced [franˈtʃesko berˈnardi]; 31 October 1686 – 27 November 1758), known as Senesino (pronounced [seneˈziːno] or traditionally [seneˈsiːno]), was an Italian contralto castrato, particularly remembered today for his long collaboration with the composer George Frideric Handel. He was also involved in a public scandal with the soprano Anastasia Robinson in 1724, which was circulated widely by the satirist Jonathan Swift, and inspired a number of anonymously-written obscene, misogynistic, and at times sexually subversive epistles written between 1724 and 1736 which have become a topic of study among scholars of Restoration literature.

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