Songs penned by renowned Italian journalists including Sandro Ciotti, Maurizio Costanzo, Gianni Minà, and Antonio Lubrano for a “ghost festival” have been lost to history. Despite being performed by major stars of the 1960s such as Gianni Morandi, Giorgio Gaber, Mia Martini, Iva Zanicchi, Gino Paoli, and Edoardo Vianello, and broadcast on RAI’s primary channels, the tracks remain unreleased. The original film reels have vanished from the RAI archives, record labels never issued the discs, and the copyright filings at the Italian Authors and Publishers Association (SIAE) were found to be forged.
The event, named Cantastampa, was created by Sandro delli Ponti, a journalist for Il Resto del Carlino, and Gianni Ravera, the then-patron of the Sanremo Festival. It ran for five editions from 1963 to 1972, gathering music celebrities and top journalists who were tasked with writing song lyrics in place of professional lyricists. The story is now revealed in the book “C’era una volta il Cantastampa, quando i giornalisti spodestarono i parolieri” (Once Upon a Time There Was Cantastampa, When Journalists Ousted the Lyricists) by journalist Michele Bovi and writer Pasquale Panella, the creators of the RAI1 program Techetechetè.
On Friday, September 12, 2025, at Rome’s Teatro Tordinona, Bovi and Panella will launch the 2025 edition of “Letture in scena” with a presentation of their book. Panella will recite the lyrics written by the journalists, which were set to music by renowned composers like Ennio Morricone, Luis Bacalov, and Stelvio Cipriani. Bovi will detail the causes and ambiguities that led to Cantastampa becoming a “ghost festival” and will list the programs lost from the RAI archives. These include 23 episodes of “Il paroliere questo sconosciuto,” which featured Raffaella Carrà’s debut as a host alongside Lelio Luttazzi, 17 episodes of the 1976 cartoon “Il Conte di Montecristo,” an exclusive 1976 interview with ex-Beatle Ringo Starr by journalist Fiorella Gentile for Renzo Arbore’s “L’Altra domenica,” and historic programs like Febo Conti’s “Chissà chi lo sa?,” Pippo Baudo’s “Settevoci,” and “Ragazzi in gamba” with Bianca Maria Piccinino and Piero Pompili—the first TV show to feature a puppet, Serafino, a forgotten predecessor of Topo Gigio.