Piazza Nicosia On December 5th 1791, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b. 1756, Salzburg) died in Vienna. A plaque in Piazza Nicosia records a visit to Rome, in the spring of 1770, by the young Mozart in the company of his father Leopold. The house where they stayed no longer stands, but the plaque also commemorates the prodigious musical memory of the fourteen-year-old Mozart. After attending a service at the Sistine Chapel, where he heard a setting of Allegri's Miserere, he returned home and wrote down the entire piece from memory. Father and son left Rome in May, but in June they were summoned back by Pope Clement XIV (r. 1769-74), who showered praise on the young composer, awarding him the Chivalric Order of the Golden Spur. Gregorio Allegri's setting of Psalm 51 (Miserere mei, Deus: Have mercy on me, God) was composed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII (r. 1623-44). It was sung within the hallowed confines of the Sistine Chapel during the Tenebrae services of Holy Week. Comments are closed.
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My name is David Lown and I am an art historian from Cambridge, England. Since 2001 I have lived in Italy, where I run private walking tours of Rome.
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