June 1st 1846: Death of Pope Gregory XVI (r. 1831-46).
June 3rd 1963: Death of Pope John XIII (r. 1958-63). 1977: Death of Roberto Rossellini (b. 1906), one of the most prominent directors of Italian neorealism.
June 4th 1911: Inauguration of the National Monument to King Vittorio Emanuele II, better known as the Vittoriano. 1944: Liberation of Rome by the allied forces.
June 5th 1446: Canonisation of St Nicholas of Tolentino (1245-1305) by Pope Eugenius IV (r. 1431-47).
June 7th 1929: Birth of the Stato della Città del Vaticano (Vatican City State). June 9th 68 CE: Death by suicide of the Emperor Nero (r. 54-68).
June 10th 1654: Death of the Baroque sculptor Alessandro Algardi. 1924: Assassination of the socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti (b. 1885) by a group of fascists. 1940: Mussolini declares war on Britain and France.
June 11th 1591: Death of the architect Martino Longhi the Elder (b. 1534).
June 12th 1651: The Fountain of the Four Rivers, the work of Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), was unveiled to the public.
June 14th 1497: Murder of Giovanni Borgia (b. 1474), 2nd Duke of Gandia and second son of Pope Alexander VI (r. 1492-1503).
June 15th 2019: Death of the film director Franco Zeffirelli (b. 1923).
June 16th 1700: Birth of the sculptor Pietro Bracci, who carved the colossal statue of Oceanus, the centrepiece of the Trevi Fountain. 1846: Election of Pius IX (r. 1846-78), who would become the longest-reigning pope in the history of the papacy. 1871: Pius IX becomes the first pope to reign for twenty-five years.
June 20th 1669: Election of Pope Clement IX (r. 1667-69). June 21st 1547: Death of the Venetian painter Sebastiano Luciani, better known as Sebastiano del Piombo (b. 1485). 1963: Election of Pope Paul VI (r. 1963-78). June 22nd 1633: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was found guilty of heresy by the Holy Office of the Catholic Church, and sentenced to imprisonment. The following day, this was commuted to house arrest, which he remained under for the rest of his life. 1983: Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, a fifteen-year-old resident of Vatican City, who went missing while returning from a flute lesson in the centro storico. Her disappearance has been described as the most famous unsolved mystery in Italy! June 28th 1674: Birth of the painter and caricaturist Pier Leone Ghezzi (d. 1755).
June 29th 1633: Inauguration of Bernini’s Baldacchino in St Peter’s Basilica. 1779: Death of the German painter Anton Raphael Mengs (b. 1728), who is buried in the church of Santi Michele e Magno.