Maria Farneti

[2] Farneti, "said to be the greatest beauty on the Italian stage",[3] made her official debut in 1899, as Mimi in La bohème in Sansepolcro.

[4] In 1902 she made her North American debut and sang in Pietro Mascagni's Iris in New York.

[7] She sang on tours of South America, at theatres in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro, in 1911 and 1913.

In 1922 she coached Irish soprano Margaret Burke Sheridan for a performance of Madama Butterfly.

[10] Farneti married a lawyer, Luigi Riboldi, in 1917, and spent her retirement in a villa on Lake Como.