Showing posts with label Pope Gregory XVI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pope Gregory XVI. Show all posts

27 December 2018

Saint Veronica Giuliani

Life of compassionate nun is still inspiring others


Veronica Giuliani was received into a monastery at the age of 17
Veronica Giuliani was received into a
monastery at the age of 17
Nun and mystic Veronica Giuliani was born on this day in 1660 in Mercatello sul Metauro in the Duchy of Urbino.

After she had spent her whole life devoted to Christ, the marks of the crown of thorns appeared on her forehead and the signs of his five wounds on her body. She was subjected to a rigorous testing of her experience by her bishop but, after he decided the phenomena were authentic, he allowed her to return to normal convent life.

The nun was made a saint by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839, more than 100 years after her death.

Veronica was born Orsola Giuliani, the youngest of seven sisters. By the time she was three years old she was demonstrating compassion for the poor, often giving away her own food and clothes.

When her father decided she was old enough to marry, she pleaded with him to be allowed to choose a different way of life and, at the age of 17, in 1677 she was received into the monastery of the Capuchin Poor Clares in Città di Castello in Umbria.

She took the name of Veronica and lived as a sister in the convent for the next 50 years.

A painting by an unidentified artist of Veronica receiving the stigmata
A painting by an unidentified artist
of Veronica receiving the stigmata
Sister Veronica was made novice mistress at the age of 34 and abbess at the age of 55. She improved the life of her fellow nuns by having water piped into the convent as until then they had no supply of fresh water.

When the marks of the stigmata appeared on her head and body, Veronica’s bishop removed her from ordinary convent life and kept her under constant observation. It was only when he was satisfied the marks were authentic that he allowed her back into the convent to continue her service.

Veronica died in 1727, aged 66, at Città di Castello. After her death a mark representing the cross was allegedly found on her body near her heart. She was beatified by Pope Pius VII in 1804 and canonised by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839.

In 1994, a Lebanese man came across her writings and was inspired to found a new religious order. Banners throughout the country proclaimed ‘A Saint rises up in Lebanon’ to herald the first church outside Italy dedicated to Saint Veronica Giuliani. It was consecrated on 9 July 2016, the date of Saint Veronica’s annual feast day.

The statue of  Saint Veronica in the village of Mercatello sul Matauro
The statue in the village
of Mercatello sul Matauro
Travel tip:

There is a statue of Saint Veronica in the village of Mercatello sul Metauro, her place of birth, which is about 50km (31 miles) south of Pesaro in the Marche region.  Mercatello’s Gothic Church of Saint Francis dates back to the 13th century and has a fine collection of paintings from the 12th to the 17th centuries.


Città di Castello's Capuchin Monastery, where Veronica Giuliani was resident for 50 years, is in Via XI Settembre
Città di Castello's Capuchin Monastery, where Veronica
Giuliani was resident for 50 years, is in Via XI Settembre
Travel tip:

The Capuchin Monastery in Via XI Settembre in Città di Castello is now named after Veronica Giuliani. The body of the saint lies inside an urn under the main altar of the church, which is named after Saint Martin of Tours and dates back to 1208. The church is open to the public from 6.30 to 12.30 and from 3.30 to 6.30 pm each day. A museum has been established on one side of the monastery’s cloister to offer an insight into the life of Saint Veronica and to house her relics.


More reading:

How San Leonardo da Porto Maurizio advanced the spread of religion

The Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi

The murdered nurse who was made a saint

Also on this day:

1888: The birth of operatic tenor Tito Schipa

1983: Pope John Paul II visits his would-be killer in prison

1985: Terrorists attack Fiumicino airport


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26 July 2018

Constantino Brumidi - painter

Rome-born artist responsible for murals in US Capitol Building


Constantino Brumidi left Italy in 1852 after being released from prison
Constantino Brumidi left Italy in 1852 after
being released from prison
Constantino Brumidi, an artist whose work provides the backcloth to the daily business of government in the United States Capitol Building in Washington, was born on this day in 1805 in Rome.

Brumidi’s major work is the allegorical fresco The Apotheosis of Washington, painted in 1865, which covers the interior of the dome in the Rotunda.

Encircling the base of the dome, below the windows, is the Frieze of American History, in which Brumidi painted scenes depicting significant events of American history, although the second half of the work, which he began in 1878, had to be completed by another painter, Filippo Costaggini,  as Brumidi died in 1880.

Previously, between 1855 and about 1870, Brumidi had decorated the walls of eight important rooms in the Capitol Building, including the Hall of the House of Representatives, the Senate Library and the President’s Room.

His Liberty and Union paintings are mounted near the ceiling of the White House entrance hall and the first-floor corridors of the Senate part of the Capitol Building are known as the Brumidi Corridors.

Brumidi arrived in the United States in 1852, having spent 13 months in jail in Rome following the upheaval caused by the occupation of the city by French forces and the revolution among Roman citizens that led to the formation of the short-lived Roman Republic.

A section of Brumidi's Corridor in the  Capitol Building in Washington
A section of Brumidi's Corridor in the
Capitol Building in Washington
He was already a well-known and respected artist, whose murals adorned a theatre built at the villa of the wealthy Torlonia family. At the time of the revolution he was working for the Vatican, where he has restored some frescoes for Pope Gregory XVI and painted a portrait of Pope Pius IX, for whom he was also a captain in the civic guard set up to defend the city. At the same time, he and his family were running a coffee shop in Rome inherited from his father.

When Pius IX fled to avoid capture when the republic was declared, Brumidi took it upon himself to remove some valuable art works from the Vatican for safe keeping. When Pius IX returned, however, Brumidi was arrested, accused of theft and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

It was only after many pleas were made on his behalf that the pope decided to show mercy on Brumidi and grant him a pardon, his decision influenced by Brumidi’s intention to emigrate to the United States.

Born in Rome of a Greek father and Italian mother, and trained in painting and sculpture at the Accademia di San Luca, he applied for US citizenship as soon as he arrived in New York and began to earn a living from private commissions and and by painting murals and altarpieces in various churches.

Among his religious paintings are a fresco of the Crucifixion at Our Lady of the Scapular and St. Stephen Church on East 29th Street in Manhattan, for which he also executed a Martyrdom of St. Stephen and an Assumption of Mary.

Brumidi worked at the Capitol Building for 25 years until his death
Brumidi worked at the Capitol Building for
25 years until his death
He also executed frescoes at Taylor's Chapel, Baltimore and further examples of his work can be seen at n the Cathedral-Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia, St. Ignatius Church in Baltimore, and St Aloysius Church in Washington.

When he was granted US citizenship in 1857 he was already in the employ of the US Government, earning eight dollars a day. He was so proud of his new status that a fresco he completed soon afterwards, in the Hall of the House of Representatives, he signed ‘C. Brumidi, Artist, Citizen of the U.S.’

Brumidi died in Washington and was interred at Glenwood Cemetery. His grave was unmarked and its location lost until 1952, when a document detailing where he had been buried was found and a marker was finally placed above it.

His work in the Capitol was not acknowledged for many years but in September, 2008, President George W. Bush signed a law that posthumously awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal, to be displayed in the Capitol Visitor Center, as part of an exhibit honoring him.

The Accademia di San Luca in Palazzo Carpegna
Travel tip:

The Accademia di San Luca was founded in 1577 as an association of artists in Rome with the purpose of elevating the work of "artists", which included painters, sculptors and architects, above that of mere craftsmen. The Academy was named after Saint Luke the evangelist who, legend has it, made a portrait of the Virgin Mary, and thus became the patron saint of painters' guilds.  From the late 16th century until it moved to its present location at the Palazzo Carpegna - just behind the Trevi Fountain along Via della Stamperia - the Academy was based in a building by the Roman Forum near the Academy church of Santi Luca e Martina, designed by the Baroque architect, Pietro da Cortona.

A view over St Peter's Square at the heart of the Vatican
 A view over St Peter's Square at the heart of the Vatican
Travel tip:

The Vatican can be defined as the palace within the Vatican City in which the pope resides or Vatican City itself, an independent state inside Italy, policed by its own security force, the Swiss Guard. St Peter’s Basilica, built over the place where St Peter is believed to have been crucified and buried, is part of Vatican City, as are the Vatican museums where you can see the Sistine Chapel, which was decorated by Michelangelo. The Pope holds audiences in the Vatican every Wednesday and blesses the crowds in St Peter’s Square every Sunday.

More reading:

How Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was revealed for the first time

The Sienese sculptor who made his mark in Pittsburgh and Birmingham, Alabama

The Tuscan architect whose work found him fame in Detroit

Also on this day:

1471: The death of the flamboyant Pope Paul II

1928: The birth of former President of Italy Francesco Cossiga

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15 March 2017

Giuseppe Mezzofanti - hyperpolyglot

Roman Catholic Cardinal could speak 38 languages



A portrait of Giuseppe Mezzofanti painted  in around 1838 in Bologna
A portrait of Giuseppe Mezzofanti painted
in around 1838 in Bologna
The death occurred in Rome on this day in 1849 of Cardinal Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti, a prodigiously talented academic renowned for his command of multiple foreign languages.

Defined as a hyperpolyglot - someone who is fluent in six languages or more - Mezzofanti is said to have full command of at least 38.

The majority were European, Mediterranean or Middle Eastern languages - mainstream and regional - but he was also said to be fluent in Chinese languages, Russian, plus Hindi and Gujarati.

His fame was such that he became something of an international celebrity, although he never actually left Italy, living the early part of his life in his home city of Bologna, before moving to Rome. 

Visiting dignitaries from all over the world would ask to be introduced to him, ready to be awestruck as he slipped effortlessly into their native tongue.

There is an abundance of stories illustrating his extraordinary gift.  As a boy, working in the workshop in Bologna of his father, Francis, a carpenter, he is said to have overheard from a neighbouring building a priest giving lessons in Latin and Greek and later recalled every word, despite never having seen a Latin or Greek book.

The library at Bologna University is named after Mezzofanti
In another famous anecdote, it is said that Pope Gregory XVI once arranged an audience with Mezzofanti for a group of international students, who asked questions of the Cardinal in their own languages, often speaking over each other, and reacted with amazement as he responded to each student in turn, switching from one language to another with barely a pause.

One of his grimmer duties as a priest was to listen to the confessions of foreign criminals sentenced to death and another story has it that, on a rare occasion when he found himself with no knowledge of the native tongue of two prisoners condemned for piracy, he asked for a stay of execution for the pair and returned the following day able to understand their every word and offer words of consolation in return.

For all his admirers, Mezzofanti has attracted just as many sceptics, particularly in recent years, with some modern experts in linguistics writing off his revered talents as a myth.

It has been argued that 19th-century linguists would have been described as fluent on the strength of their reading and translating, whereas the definition of fluency today requires the ability to communicate orally to a very high standard.

The beautiful Apostolic Library at the University of  Bologna
The beautiful Sistine Hall of the Vatican Library
Mezzofanti's doubters suggest that the nature of exchanges between a Cardinal and foreign dignitaries in his time would have been fairly superficial, consisting of diplomatic formalities and not much more.  They argue that Mezzofanti would rarely have been required to stretch himself beyond basic vocabulary.

Furthermore, they points to studies that suggest no hyperpolyglot can maintain more than seven or eight languages to a high standard at any one time because the limitations of working memory.

However, there is some evidence that hyperpolyglots are biologically or genetically predisposed to be extraordinary feats of language assimilation because the areas of their brain responsible for such skills are more developed than normal.

It has also been suggested that polyglots are better at grasping languages because of an ability to identify patterns in a language based on knowledge gleaned from other languages.

Mezzofanti was certainly a gifted individual with a flair for learning.

He was appointed Professor of Arabic at the University of Bologna at the age of just 24 and was ordained as a priest in the same year.

A map from 1799 showing the area of the  Cisalpine Republic (in green)
A map from 1799 showing the area of the
Cisalpine Republic (in green)
Sacked by the University after refusing to swear allegiance to Napoleon's Cisalpine Republic, he returned after its fall to be assistant librarian of the Institute of Bologna, and soon afterwards was reinstated as professor of Oriental languages and of Greek.

Mezzofanti stayed in that post for the most part until he left Bologna to go to Rome in 1831 as a member of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Congregatio de Propaganda Fide), the Catholic Church's governing body for missionary activities.  In Rome he was created a Cardinal.

In 1833, he succeeded Angelo Mai as Custodian-in-Chief of the Vatican Library. 

Capable of remembering entire texts after one reading, he is said to have been able to spend many more hours in study than the average person because he could get by on only three hours' sleep per night.

He is said to have kept his language skills fresh by aiming to spend at least some time each day thinking in each of his languages.

Travel tip:

Via Malcontenti, where Mezzofanti was born and grew up, is less than a kilometre to the north of the centre of Bologna, and what remains of it runs parallel with the much more modern Via dell'Indipendenza.  It used to begin at Piazza San Pietro, the site of the cathedral of the same name, but the only stretch in existence today runs from Via Marsala to Via Augusto Righi.

Bologna hotels by Booking.com

One of the oldest documents in the Vatican Library is the Codex Vaticanus, a fourth century text of the Greek bible
One of the oldest documents in the Vatican Library is the
Codex Vaticanus, a fourth century text of the Greek bible
Travel tip:

Formally established in 1475, the Vatican Library, where Mezzofanti worked until his death at the age of 74, it is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. It contains 1.1 million books, as well as 75,000 handwritten codices. A research library for history, law, philosophy, science and theology, the Vatican Library is open to anyone who can document their qualifications and research needs.  In March, 2014, the Vatican Library began the process of digitising its collection of manuscripts to be made available online, which was expected to take at least four years. Restoration of the library between 2007 and 2010 cost £7.5 million.