Nicolò Paganini, an Italian musician, born in Genoa, Feb. 18, 1784, died in Nice, May 27, 1840. He was subjected by his father to a very severe training. At six years of * age he was a violinist, and began to practise novel effects upon his instrument, and to perform feats requiring great power and quickness of execution; at eight he had composed a sonata, which has been lost; and at nine he made his first public appearance in the largest theatre in Genoa, rousing the audience to an extraordinary pitch of excitement by the performance of variations, composed by himself, on the French air La Carmagnole. In 1797, in company with his father, he made his first musical tour in Italy, and soon after produced music which defied the attempts of other violinists and greatly taxed his own powers. The severe discipline to which his father subjected him meanwhile became so irksome, that before attaining his 15th year he ran away, and begun a course of concerts at Lucca, Pisa, and other cities. The flatteries lavished upon him, together with the possession of large sums of money, induced habits of dissipation.

For several years he led a vagabond life, and about the age of 18, it is said, formed a connection with an Italian lady of rank, with whom he retired to an estate of hers in Tuscany. Here he renounced the violin and devoted himself to the guitar; but his old tastes returning, he went in 1804 to Genoa and studied composition with renewed vigor.. In 1805 he began another musical tour of Italy, and between 1806 and 1808 was director of the orchestra in the service of the princess Elisa of Lucca, sister of Napoleon. At this period he first performed his remarkable feat of playing the military sonata entitled "Napoleon" on a single string. The next 20 years he spent in the chief cities of Italy, where his fame exceeded that of any previous or contemporary violinist. In 1828 he made his first appearance in Vienna, and was received with an enthusiasm bordering on the wildest extravagance. Poems were composed in his praise, medals struck in his honor, articles of dress were named after him, and the emperor appointed him violinist of his private band. After a triumphant career in Germany he arrived in Paris in March, 1831, and during the next two months produced a sensation almost without a parallel in that city.

In England, whither he went in May of the same year, his reception was not less enthusiastic, notwithstanding he charged the most exorbitant prices for admission to his concerts. Soon afterward he retired to a country seat near Parma, but the latter years of his life were rendered unhappy by lawsuits and ill health. He left a fortune of several million francs, the greater part of which was bequeathed to his natural son Achillino, whose mother was a Jewess of Milan. His personal appearance, studiously eccentric, his facility in making his instrument produce effects at once startling and unearthly, and a certain mystery connected with his character and early career gave rise to numerous stories which greatly enhanced his notoriety. He was of a gross and sensual disposition, in general exceedingly avaricious, and vain to excess of popular applause. As an artist his name has become a synonyme for all that is excellent in violin playing, notwithstanding that he degraded his art by feats little better than sleight of hand. His compositions are full of invention and beauty.

His life has been written by Schottky under the title of Paganini's Lelen und Treiben (Prague, 1830).