450 years ago, on December 27, 1571, a mathematician and astronomer, who sought the music of God in the skies, was born in Weil der Stadt, near Stuttgart in Germany: Johannes Kepler. At the age of 19 he enrolled in the Theological Facoltà of the University of Tübingen, where he studied, in addition to theology,…
A century ago, on December 16, 1921, a multifaceted musician, the undisputed protagonist of the second Romanticism in France, and a virtuoso pianist, organist and skilled improviser, prolific composer and eloquent music critic, died in Algiers (Algeria): Camille Saint-Saëns. He was born 86 years earlier, on October 9, 1835, in Paris. A child prodigy, after…
Five centuries ago, on December 13, 1521, in Le Grotte, now Grottammare, a charming town on the Adriatic coast in the Marche region, was born the tough pope: Sixtus V, whose original name was Felice Peretti. The great Roman dialect poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (1791–1863) celebrates him in one of his gracious sonnets: Among all…
Five hundred years ago, on the night of December 1, 1521, a few days before his forty-sixth birthday, a great pope of the so-called Renaissance died: Leo X, whose original name was Giovanni de’ Medici. The second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent was born in Florence on December 11, 1475 in the most important of…
The Church, acknowledging that man is not merely an intellectual being who can subsist on thoughts alone but a creature who approaches reality through his senses, has always emphasized the importance of incorporating sense-perceptible signs into her acts of worship. Even if we assent to supernatural truth sola fide, we do not engage with it…
Biretta Books has recently published 5 Alternatim Masses composed by OnePeterFive contributor Massimo Scapin: Missa “Orbis factor,” Missa Adventus et Quadragesimae, Missa “Lux et origo,” Missa “Iesu redemptor,” Missa primitiva. Mr. Scapin is the director of liturgical music at St. John Cantius in Chicago, Illinois. Contemporary choral literature for the use of basic musical associations…
It is necessary “to snatch the Rosaries from the hands of the old ladies!” How can we forget this declaration from Cardinal Michele Pellegrino (1903-1986), Archbishop of Turin between 1965 and 1977, to his clergy and often heard during the Roman youth of this article’s author? It comes to mind especially in the month of…
One hundred years ago today, the city of Palestrina inaugurated the monument dedicated to the greatest son of this ancient town located 23 miles east-southeast of Rome, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the “Prince of Music” born here in 1525. It is the fine statue by the Florentine sculptor Arnaldo Zocchi (1862-1940) which stands in the…
Editor’s note: please see Mediatrix Press for The Bellarmine Translation Project. Today four centuries have passed since the death, at almost 79 years of age, of St. Robert Bellarmine. A memorial tablet on his birthplace praises him as “the glory of the Church, of Italy, of his native place, for the sanctity of life and…
It is the seventh century since, at the age of 56, on the night of the 13th of September 1321, the brightest star of Italian literature died in his exile at Ravenna: Dante Alighieri. The father of the Italian language was born in Florence into a minor noble family and had grown up around the…
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…
