Riccardo Ventre (born on 20 June 1944 in Formicola) is an Italian politician and Member of the European Parliament for Southern with the Forza Italia, part of the European People's Party and is vice-chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Constitutional Affairs.

He is a substitute for the Committee on Regional Development, a member of the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries and a substitute for the Delegation to the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.

Maria Rachele Ventre (July 16, 1939, Bologna – December 16, 1995) was an Italian musician and singer, the founder and director of Italian children's choir Piccolo Coro dell'Antoniano.

Mariele Ventre was born and died in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna.

She was nominated and rewarded with many awards for her work with and for children. Three weeks before her death, she directed the choir and young soloists at 38th Zecchino d'Oro international festival of songs for children. Now, the choir is directed by Sabrina Simoni, formerly Ventre's assistant.

Antonella Boriani and Gianmarco Gualandi dedicated a song to her, titled "Mariele chi è?" (Who is Mariele?) sung by the Piccolo Coro Mariele Ventre dell'Antoniano on 22 November 2005 (video available at this page).

Igor Sibaldi (Milan, Italy, 15 June 1957), born from Russian mother and Italian father, is an Italian writer, scholar of theology and history of religion.

Sibaldi is the author of numerous works on the Scripture and shamanism. He regularly holds conferences and seminars in Italy and abroad about mythology, exegesis and depth psychology. He worked for a long time on angelology in Jewish tradition, equalizing it to an ancient form of psychology.

His favourite style is the essay-novel form. He has published, among the others, The Invisible Teachers (Mondadori) The forbidden fruit of knowledge (Frassinelli) The Ark of the new Masters (Frassinelli) The invisible world (Frassinelli) Book of Angels (Frassinelli) and new translations of Genesis (The creation of the universe, Sperling and Kupfer) and the Gospel of John (The Code of the Secret Gospel, Sperling and Kupfer).

Riccardo Cocciante, also known in French-speaking countries as Richard Cocciante (born 20 February 1946), is an Italian singer-songwriter and composer. His oeuvre includes recordings in Italian, French, and Spanish; he has recorded some of his songs in all three languages.

He was born in Saigon, French Indochina, now Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to an Italian father and a French mother. He moved to Rome, Italy at the age of 11 where he attended school and started his career as musician coming to success around 1972. He also lived in the USA and Ireland. In 1976, Cocciante covered the Beatles song "Michelle" for the musical documentary All This and World War II.

In 1991 he won the Sanremo Festival with the song "Se stiamo insieme", and for Christmas 1997 legendary Spanish operatic tenor and friend Plácido Domingo invited him to sing at Domingo's annual Christmas in Vienna concert, together with Sarah Brightman and Helmut Lotti.

As of 2008, Cocciante has three musicals running, probably Notre-Dame de Paris being the most known. This musical may later be put into competition against another musical in progress, Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame (musical).

Cecilia Gasdia (born August 14 1960, Verona) is an Italian operatic soprano.

Cecilia Gasdia studied music and piano at the Conservatorio di Verona, graduating in 1980. That same year she won the first prize in the "New Voices for Opera" competition dedicated to Maria Callas. In 1981 she made her operatic debut in Florence as Giulietta in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi and rose to prominence following her successful debut at La Scala in 1982 when at very short notice she replaced Montserrat Caballé in the title role of Donizetti's Anna Bolena. Following her debut at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro in 1983 she became a well-known singer in Rossini's operas during the 1980s, with 14 different Rossinian roles in her repertoire.

She made her American debut on 5 October 1985 as Gilda in a concert performance of Rigoletto in Philadelphia conducted by Riccardo Muti (repeated on 8 October at Carnegie Hall). In the same year she made her Lyric Opera of Chicago debut as Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi. John Von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune wrote of her performance: