Francesco Guccini - 2000s

2000s

Stagioni was Guccini's first album of the 2000s. The key theme is the passage of time and the different temporal cycles connected to it. Songs included are "Autunno", "Ho ancora la forza" (with Ligabue), "Don Chisciotte", in which Guccini takes the role of Don Quixote, and his guitarist that of Sancho Panza), and "Addio", a song akin to "L'avvelenata". The album and its tour were successful, with the unexpected presence of many young people among the audience, establishing Guccini as an iconic artist for three generations. A special limited edition vinyl version of Stagioni was also released.

In 2004 Guccini released Ritratti. Some of the songs contained in the album are imagined dialogues with historical figures, such as Odysseus, Christopher Columbus and Che Guevara. The first track of the album, "Odysseus", is on the theme of travel, and contains references to the Odyssey, to Dante (Canto 27 of Inferno), and to a poem by Foscolo. Another song in the album, "Piazza Alimonda", is about the death of Carlo Giuliani during the demonstrations at the G8 summit in Genoa. Ritratti received critical acclaim and commercial success, reaching the number one spot in the FIMI Albums Chart, holding it for two weeks, and remaining in the chart for eighteen weeks. In the same year, lyrics from "Canzone per Piero" were included in a final upper secondary school exam"; Guccini claimed he was "embarrassed and glad" about being alongside Cicero and Raphael. In 2005 the live double-album Anfiteatro Live, recorded in the amphitheatre in Cagliari, was released; it also included a DVD of the concert. Anfiteatro Live was a commercial success, holding the number one spot in the FIMI Chart for one month, and remaining in the chart for twenty-two weeks. In 2006 Guccini received one vote in the 2006 Italian presidential election. The same year, the triple-album The Platinum Collection, containing 47 songs, was released as a celebration of his fortieth year as a musical artist. In October Guccini's official biography, Portavo allora un Eskimo innocente by Massimo Cotto, was published.

On 21 April 2008, an article on La Stampa affirmed that Guccini had stopped smoking, and that this had caused him to gain weight and lose his inspiration. He denied it on 18 May 2008, in TV show Che tempo che fa. In 2010 the Mondadori published Non so che viso avesse, a book which contains a Guccini autobiography and, in the second part of the book, a critical essay edited by Alberto Bertoni. Luciano Ligabue, friend and colleague of Guccini, entitled him a song, "Caro il mio Francesco" on his album Arrivederci, mostro!. On 28 September 2010 the collection Storia di altre storie was released, with songs selected by Guccini himself. In the same year the botanist Davide Donati named a new species of mexican cactus, the Corynopuntia guccinii, after him. In the article about the discovery on the botanical magazine Piante Grasse, Donati explained that he discovered the unknown plant whilst listening to Guccini's "Incontro", adding: "I could not have named it after anyone else". On 25 April 2011, Guccini married for the second time, with Raffaella Zuccari, who had been his partner in the last fifteen years.