Enrico Toselli

Who was Enrico Toselli?

Enrico Toselli, Count Consort of Montignoso was an Italian pianist and composer. He studied the piano with Giovanni Sgambati and composition with Giuseppe Martucci and Reginaldo Grazzini. At a very early age he started on a brilliant career as a concert pianist in Italy, the principal European capitals and also in Alexandria and North America. Later he settled in Florence, teaching and composing, while still appearing frequently on the concert platform". He composed a number of songs, of which the Serenata 'Rimpianto' Op.6 No.1 was the most popular. He also wrote two operettas, La cattiva Francesca and La principessa bizzarra.

Although a successful performer and composer, Toselli's prodigious fame was largely due to the international scandal occasioned by his marriage to Her Imperial and Royal Highness the Archduchess Luise, Princess of Tuscany in 1907. She had previously deserted her husband, Frederick Augustus III of Saxony, years earlier. Toselli and the Archduchess' marriage was not a happy one, and they separated in 1912. They had one son together, Carlo Emanuele Toselli di Montignoso. Toselli used his fame as the ex-husband of such an illustrious woman to good effect by writing a successful book of memoirs, "Mari d’altesse: 4 ans de mariage avec Louise de Toscane, ex-princesse de Saxe".