Paolo Botti is an Italian violist, banjoist and composer born in Rome in 1969 (his own biographical note and several Italian sources state Rome; one retailer's liner text instead gives Milan, a discrepancy noted here rather than silently resolved). He trained classically at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome and completed his studies at the Conservatorio di Perugia, then turned to jazz alongside his classical training, studying with Bruno Tommaso and Franco D'Andrea. In 1996 he moved to Milan, where he joined the city's advanced improvised-music scene, took a further jazz course at the Trento Conservatory with D'Andrea, and became one of the founders of the C-Jam musicians' association, later creating the Blast Unit Orchestra.

Discogs lists Botti as artist 1492183, a single, unambiguous entity (profile text "Italian viola player, mandolinist and composer") distinct from the unrelated string players Paolo Bottini and Paolo Botticelli who surface in the same name search, and from an essentially empty duplicate entry, "Paolo Botti (2)," that carries no releases. The entity's release-relationship list runs to more than sixty credits between 1993 and 2025, the overwhelming majority Discogs-tagged Jazz, with Free Jazz, Free Improvisation, Contemporary Jazz and Avant-garde Jazz the recurring styles.

As a leader, Botti began with the Paolo Botti Quintet, pairing his viola with soprano saxophonist Alessandro Bosetti, trombonist Marina Ciccarelli, bassist Tito Mangialajo Rantzer and drummer Filippo Monico, on Leggende Metropolitane (2000, Caligola, liner notes contributed by Franco D'Andrea) and Moto Contrario (2003, Caligola). He then turned toward chamber-scaled string improvisation: Hic Et Nunc (2004, Hoaxhobo), a trio with violinist Emanuele Parrini and bassist Giovanni Maier; Viola Trio (2005, Caligola), with bassist and cellist Salvatore Maiore and drummer Anthony Moreno; and La Mala Afinaciòn (2006, Palomar Records), reuniting all four players as a quartet. Looking Back (2008, Caligola), recorded live at the Centro Culturale Candiani in Mestre with alto saxophonist Dimitri Grechi Espinoza, Tito Mangialajo Rantzer and Monico, opened a second, blues-rooted strand in his work. Angels & Ghosts (2010, Caligola), a solo record built entirely around the repertoire of Albert Ayler, was voted among the year's best in Musica Jazz magazine's annual Top Jazz critics' poll. Slight Imperfection (2013, Caligola) reunited the Looking Back quartet under singer Betty Gilmore, with Parrini guesting on violin.

The blues project widened into a full sextet on La Fabbrica Dei Botti (2015, Caligola), adding Grechi Espinoza, drummer Zeno De Rossi, bassist Tito Mangialajo Rantzer, trumpeter Luca Calabrese, trombonist Tony Cattano and saxophonist Edoardo Marraffa, with mastering by guitarist Enrico Terragnoli. The same year Botti released The Lomax Tapes (2015, Musica Jazz), a solo, multi-instrumental survey of roughly twenty songs from Alan Lomax's field recordings, made to mark the centennial of the folklorist's birth and playing viola, dobro, banjo, mandolin, violin, Stroh violin, cornet, guitar and psaltery himself across the record. He returned to the same repertoire with the full sextet, now billed as La Fabbrica Dei Botti, on Lomax Lives! (2019, Caligola), recorded at the Centro Culturale Candiani in January 2018 with Terragnoli again mastering and adding guitar and banjo, and with a cover drawing by Margherita Botti.

Alongside his own records, Botti has built one of the busiest session careers among Italian free-improvising string players, credited on well over fifty other releases. He plays viola on two of Franco D'Andrea's "Eleven" project albums, Eleven (1999) and Combinazione 1 (2000, with trumpeter Steven Bernstein); on Bruno Tommaso's Nux Erat (1993, with poet Vittorino Curci) and, as an orchestra member under Tommaso's direction, on Orchestra Utopia and the Paolo Fresu Sextet's 6 x 30 (Anche I Numeri Danno Poesia) (1996); and on four albums led or co-led by trumpeter Giovanni Falzone between 2003 and 2007 (Big Fracture, Earthquake Suite, Live In Clusone and R-Evolution Suite). He is a member of guitarist Domenico Caliri's chamber-strings project Domenico Caliri Violongerìa on Il Buio Acceso (2009), of drummer Cristiano Calcagnile's Multikulti Ensemble on Multikulti Cherry On (2016) and The Gift Of Togetherness (2019), of tenor saxophonist Daniele Cavallanti's Milano Contemporary Art Ensemble on Sounds Of Hope (2015), and of trombonist Mauro Ottolini's Sousaphonix across four releases between 2012 and 2016. He also appears on saxophonist Dimitri Grechi Espinoza's large-ensemble radio commission Tutto Quello Che Avreste Voluto Sentire Dal Jazz E Che Non Avete Mai Osato Chiedere (2006) and on violinist Emanuele Parrini's own Viaggio Al Centro Del Violino (Vol. 1) (2013). Further credits run from Roberto Bonati's ParmaFrontiere Orchestra (four albums, 2003-2023) and Ferdinando Faraò's Artchipel Orchestra to saxophonist Roberto Ottaviano's Arcthetics - Soffio Primitivo (2013) and drummer Tiziano Tononi's Landscapes Volume 1 (2025).

Botti's own biography and press coverage also credit performances and collaborations with pianist Giorgio Gaslini, saxophonist Dave Liebman, pianist Dave Burrell, bassist William Parker, cellist Tristan Honsinger, saxophonist Evan Parker and bassist Barre Philips across festivals in Europe, Asia and Africa; none of these turned up a matching Discogs release credit in this profile's research, so they are reported here as documented but Discogs-unverified associations rather than credit-level collaborations. He continues to perform, including a solo recital, "Solitude," blending classical music, jazz, rural blues and American traditional music, presented at Milan's La Scighera venue in 2024.

The viola is a genuinely unusual lead voice in jazz, and Botti has spent his career testing what it can do there: pairing it with a working rhythm section in quintet and quartet formats, stripping it down to chamber-scaled string trios and duos with fellow violinist Emanuele Parrini, and using it as the sole melodic instrument on an unaccompanied Albert Ayler tribute. His catalog runs consistently under the banners Discogs assigns it most often, Free Jazz, Free Improvisation, Contemporary Jazz and Avant-garde Jazz, but it also opens repeatedly onto American vernacular music: the blues-based songbook explored across Looking Back, Slight Imperfection and La Fabbrica Dei Botti, and the direct engagement with Alan Lomax's field recordings on The Lomax Tapes and Lomax Lives!, where banjo, dobro, mandolin and Stroh violin sit alongside the viola. That combination, classically trained string technique turned toward free improvisation and roots repertoire in more or less equal measure, is the throughline of his work as a leader.