Antonio "Antonello" Venditti (born 8 March 1949) is an Italian singer-songwriter and pianist who became popular in the 1970s for the social themes addressed in his songs.

He studied piano in his youth and made his debut in the music world in the early 1970s at the Folkstudio in Rome, together with singers like Francesco De Gregori, Mimmo Locasciulli, Grazia Di Michele and Giorgio Lo Cascio.

The LP enjoyed limited commercial success, but showcased Venditti's powerful voice and talent for addressing social issues.

Although Venditti's use of religious language was not typical of the left-wing culture he adhered to, his lifestyle in the late 1960s and the 1970s was, as he later told the journalist Giampaolo Mattei, "secular": "They were years in which the influence of the left was really strong and the life of young people then was somewhat Godless.

Other popular pieces in the album were "Compagno di scuola" ("Schoolmate") and the long ballad "Lo stambecco ferito" ("The Wounded Ibex"), the story of a corrupt Northern Italian tycoon.

The eponymous track scored a great success, but was largely misinterpreted as a love song: it actually referred to Venditti's career, as he was in fact born "under the Pisces sign".

In 1982 the bitter Sotto la pioggia marked Venditti's passage to his own label, Heinz Music, and the beginning of the long-lasting collaboration with producer Alessandro Colombini.

Pieces like "Notte prima degli esami" or "Ma che bella giornata di sole" (about the liberation of Italy, in April 1945, from the fascist regime and of the occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II) were anyway praised by critics.

In 2001 A.S. Roma again won a scudetto, and Venditti played again in a free concert in the Circo Massimo for an immense audience of tifosi and lovers of his songs.

His latest studio release is Che fantastica storia è la vita ("What a Fantastic Story Life Is", October 2003).

In April 2008, in an interview with a Catholic website, Venditti spoke of his faith in Christ, his devotion to Padre Pio and his respect for Pope Benedict XVI, and also mentioned having been assaulted when he was sixteen by a malevolent entity which he identified with Satan.

[2] This led the media to class Venditti with other high-profile show-business converts like Claudia Koll (who was also attacked by a malevolent entity) and Giovanni Lindo Ferretti,[3] although actually his conversion long predates theirs.

In January 2014, Venditti started his small sold-out tour 'Ritorno al Futuro', which consists of the songs from the 1970s and 1980s, such as "Lo stambecco ferito", "Marta", "Compagno di scuola", "Campo de' Fiori" and others.