One hundred years ago, at the age of forty-eight, the tenor par excellence died in Naples: Enrico Caruso. He was born on February 27, 1873, in a large family and he enjoyed singing from childhood. Thanks to the Rev. Giuseppe Bronzetti, pastor of the Church of Sant’Anna delle Paludi, he made his first vocal appearances…
590 years ago, on May 30, 1431, a young French saint died at the age of 19, The Maid of Orleans, that is, virgin, as she is called by all and Friedrich Schiller in his homonyms drama of 1801: Joan of Arc. Matching her with St Catherine of Siena, Benedict XVI defines both “two young…
Two hundred years ago, “by the tidings, in amaze / the earth is held, and with her gaze / the parting hour doth mutely scan / of this great spirit,” as we read in Alessandro Manzoni’s The Fifth of May. In fact, on May 5, 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte died in Saint Helena, a British island…
Half a millennium ago, on April 27, 1521, the Portuguese explorer who made the first tour of the world in human history was killed in the Philippines during an unexpected skirmish on the small island of Mactan: Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães, in Portoguese; Fernando de Magallanes, in Spanish). Born to a noble family in…
Fifty years ago today, on April 6, 1971, at the age of 88, the composer Igor Stravinsky died of a heart attack in New York. He was a musical genius of the twentieth century who did not limit himself — so they said — to turning a page in the history of music; instead, he…
One hundred years ago, on March 11, 1921, the greatest musician of Argentina in the second half of the last century was born: Astor Piazzolla. In Argentina he was born in Mar del Plata to Italian parents (the father from Trani in Puglia, the mother from the Garfagnana in Tuscany) and died on July 4,…
The Statio Radiophonica Vaticana — better known in the English-speaking world as Vatican Radio –which reaches all continents with its news and programs in 32 languages, turns 90 today. The broadcasting entity of the Holy See, legally recognized by international courts, is an instrument of communication and of evangelization at the service of the Papacy.…
Eighty years ago this week, on January 12, 1941, James Joyce (Dublin 1882 — Zurich 1941), a great wordsmith, an Irish writer counted among the greatest of the twentieth century, fell into a coma following an operation for an ulcer performed the previous day. On January 13th, he died. He was less than a month…
Tomorrow marks 250 years since the baptism of the great German composer, considered the last of the Classics and the first of the Romantics: Ludwig van Beethoven (Bonn 1770 – Vienna 1827). Retracing his life as a man and artist, through his family, economic and character problems, the seriousness of his training and his artistic…
On November 28, 1680, 340 years ago, under the reign of Pope Innocent XI, the eleventh pope he served, the genius symbol of Roman Baroque art died in Rome at the age of 81: the architect, sculptor, painter, and set designer, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Naples 1598 – Rome 1680). Pope Urban VIII (1568-1644), with whom…
Sunday, November 1st, marked the 70th anniversary of the Proclamation of the Dogma of Mary’s Assumption. On November 1, 1950, in fact, Pius XII, during a memorable Jubilee Year — the first in the era of the mass media — performed this solemn act in St. Peter’s Square, promulgating the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus. In…
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