Full Name=Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi, Profession=Italian composer of operas, musician, cultural icon, and national hero of the 19th century, Nationality=Italian, Born=10 October 1813, Birthplace=Le Roncole (now Roncole Verdi), a small village near Busseto in the province of Parma, then within the French-controlled Duchy of Parma, Generation= Early 19th-century Romantic era generation of European composers closely associated with Italy’s Risorgimento movement for national unification and modern Italian identity, Chinese Zodiac=Rooster (1813 was a Rooster year beginning on 1 February 1813, and his birth on 10 October falls within that lunar year), Zodiac Sign=Libra (his birth chart places the Sun in Libra, reflecting his lifelong search for harmony, balance, partnership, and dramatic beauty), Age in 2026= It would be approximately 213 years old if living. However, he died in 1901 at about 87. Marital Status= Married first to Margherita Barezzi, daughter of his patron Antonio Barezzi, in 1836 and widowed after her death around 1840, later entering a long partnership with soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, with whom he lived from the late 1840s and finally married in 1859 near Geneva, remaining married until she died in 1897 and thus widowed a second time, Children= Two children with his first wife, Margherita Barezzi, daughter Virginia Maria Luigia Verdi (born 26 March 1837 and died 12 August 1838), and son Icilio Romano Verdi (born 11 July 1838 and died 22 October 1839), both of whom tragically died in infancy, so Verdi had no surviving biological children and poured much of his paternal feeling into students, colleagues, and charitable foundations. Description=Giuseppe Verdi is widely regarded as one of the greatest opera composers in history, a towering figure of 19th-century music whose works such as Rigoletto, Il trovatore, La traviata, Don Carlos, Aida, Otello, and Falstaff, together with his monumental Requiem Mass, transformed the opera stage through unforgettable melodies, gripping drama, vivid characterization, and a profound sense of human emotion; born into a modest innkeeping family in Le Roncole, he showed early musical talent and was supported by local merchant and music enthusiast Antonio Barezzi, who took him into his home in Busseto, financed his studies in Milan, and later became his father-in-law, helping Verdi to overcome setbacks such as rejection from the Milan Conservatory and mixed critical reception to some early works; Verdi’s personal life was marked by intense grief when both of his infant children and his young wife Margherita died by 1840, a sequence of losses that nearly caused him to abandon composition, yet he returned with renewed creative power in operas like Nabucco, whose famous chorus “Va, pensiero” became an unofficial anthem of Italian longing for freedom and unity and helped cement his status as a musical voice of the Risorgimento; over a career that produced around 28 operas, he evolved from passionate early melodramas to sophisticated late masterpieces based on Shakespeare, such as Otello and the comic Falstaff, continuously refining orchestration, vocal writing and dramatic structure while insisting that music serve the truth of the theatrical situation and the psychological realism of his characters; beyond composition he was an active landowner and public figure, serving briefly in the Italian parliament and using his wealth for philanthropy, most notably founding and endowing the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti in Milan, a retirement home for elderly musicians where he arranged that he and Strepponi would be buried, reflecting his deep commitment to the welfare of fellow artists; today his operas remain central to the international repertoire and are performed in major houses across the world, and he is celebrated not only as a genius of melody and drama but as a symbol of Italian cultural identity whose music continues to move audiences with themes of love, power, sacrifice and moral struggle, Cause of Death=Verdi died in Milan on 27 January 1901 after suffering a severe stroke, described in medical analyses as a massive cerebral haemorrhage affecting the left hemisphere, which left him paralysed and aphasic and, despite the efforts of physicians, led to his death about a week later in a room of the Grand Hotel et de Milan at around 3 a.m., after which he was mourned with one of the largest public funerals in Italian history.