Giovanni Carestini
Italian castrato singer (1700-1760)
Giovanni Carestini (13 December 1700 in Filottrano, near Ancona – 1759 in Bologna) was an Italian castrato of the 18th century, who sang in the operas and oratorios of George Frideric Handel. He is also remembered as having sung for Johann Adolf Hasse and Christoph Willibald Gluck.
Career
Giovanni Carestini was born on 13 December 1700 in Filottrano. He was the son of Marco Felice Carestini and Vittoria Costantini. He was baptized two days after his birth by Don Nicola Gentiloni, provost of the Church of Santa Maria Assunta in Filottrano. In that occasion it was given the name Giovanni Maria Bernardino. The godfathers of his baptism were Felice Lancioni and Olimpia Felice Gentiloni, wife of Alessandro Gentiloni, a noble man of Filottrano. Since he was a child he had an exquisite and sweet voice.
Carestini's career began in Milan in 1719, patronised at the time by the Cusani family (hence the alternative name Cusanino). He sang for Alessandro Scarlatti in Rome in 1721.
“Giovanni Carestini” enters the record as italian castrato singer (1700-1760). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Giovanni, Carestini and Italian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1275132. VIAF identifies the subject as 314792669. The Library of Congress control number is no2001000640. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1700, 1759, 1719 and 1721.
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This entry incorporates text from “Giovanni Carestini” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.