Alberto Franchetti (18 September 1860 – 4 August 1942) was an Italian composer and racing driver, best known for the 1902 opera Germania.

The words of music critic G. B. Nappi sum up Franchetti's primary talents: "His character is perhaps unsuitable for passionate dramas, but rather for those subjects, where the fantastic, romantic and epic are required in the symphonic texture and large choral pictures.

It clung to the general operatic repertoire until the First World War; it was performed worldwide, and Arturo Toscanini (who conducted the work at La Scala) and Enrico Caruso held it in high regard.

Caruso included a couple of the arias in his very first commercial recording session in 1902 (with piano accompaniment) and repeated one piece the following year for the Zonophone company.

Recent revivals and recordings of Cristoforo Colombo and Germania (Berlin Oper 2006/7) show his work to be of genuine quality with a fine ability in orchestration and use of the chorus, symphonic in style.

The villa, with its numerous outbuildings, was rescued from near dereliction by its current owner Gustavo Nardi, who writes of the villa's connections with Franchetti (http://www.villanardifirenze.com/History[permanent dead link‍]) Franchetti was an early pioneer of motor racing, having co-founded the Italian Motorists’ Club in 1897 and participated in the inaugural Mille Miglia in 1927.

Arnold Franchetti was Professor of Composition at the Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford, Connecticut from 1950 until his retirement in 1979.