Giulio Briccialdi (1818–1881) was an Italian virtuoso flautist and composer, a technical innovator on his instrument and a professor of music. Briccialdi was sometimes known as “the Paganini of the flute.”
Briccialdi was born in Terni, and began studying flute with his father. After his father’s death, the 14-year-old Briccialdi moved to Rome to pursue a musical career and avoid family pressure to join the priesthood. His first appointment was to the Accdemia di Santa Cecilia in Rome at the age of 17. While in Rome, he studied composition and, in 1835, began teaching flute at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. Over the next couple of years, he worked in Naples and Milan, and was flute teacher to the king’s brother. Then in 1841, he toured Europe and America, finally settling in London the following year.
In London, he became a director of the instrument making firm Rudall and Rose and was responsible for several mechanical developments, which are still in use today. He was appointed professor of flute at the Conservatoire in Florence in 1870, and remained there until his death in 1881.