May 12th
1700: Birth of the Neapolitan architect Luigi Vanvitelli (d. 1773). 1797: Fall of the Republic of Venice. Ludovico Manin entered history as the last Doge of Venice. 1820: Birth of Florence Nightingale (d. 1910) in Firenze, the city that is known in the Anglosphere as Florence, hence her name. |
May 13th
1804: Birth of the Venetian politician Daniele Manin (d. 1857), who, in 1848, led a short-lived insurrection against the city's Austrian rulers. 1981: Attempted assassination, in Rome's Piazza San Pietro, of Pope John Paul II (r. 1978-2005). |
May 22nd
1762: Inauguration of the Trevi Fountain by Pope Clement XIII (r. 1758-69). 1873: Death, in Milan, of the writer Alessandro Manzoni (b. 1785), who is most famous for his novel I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed). |
May 26th
1595: Death, in Rome, of St Philip Neri (b. 1515), who is buried in the Chiesa Nuova. 1805: Coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte as king of Italy, in the cathedral of Milan. |