Il Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano was an Italian folk group founded in Milan in 1962. Established by Roberto Leydi and Gianni Bosio, the project initially focused on studying and preserving traditional songs through a magazine of the same name. In 1964, Leydi and Sandra Mantovani formed a musical ensemble to reinterpret repertoires related to social protest and the Resistance. Their first production, L'altra Italia, was performed in Milan in 1964. The group received international attention for the 1964 recital Bella ciao at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto. This performance helped establish the track “Bella ciao” as a symbolic anthem of the Italian Resistance. Members included Fausto Amodei, Michele Straniero, and Giovanna Marini. The project collaborated with figures such as Umberto Eco and Franco Fortini, issuing the albums Bella ciao (1964) and Ci ragiono e canto (1966). Following Bosio’s death in 1971, the group became inactive but resumed activity in 1973 under Ivan Della Mea. Both the magazine and the group ended definitively in 1978.
