Monday, April 2, 1725. Birth of Giacomo Girolamo Casanova

Better known simply by his last name, Casanova remains famous for his sexual exploits and libertine lifestyle.

He was born in the Republic of Venice and died in 1798 in Bohemia, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. Late in life he wrote his memoirs, which is why he is remembered today.   A lawyer by training, he was mostly a seducer in society and a gambler, and was working as a librarian at the time of his death.  Given his behavior, he is thought to have fathered several children, including a child by one of his own illegitimate daughters.

Interestingly, his final words were "I have lived as a philosopher and I die as a Christian", perhaps showing a late in life conversion back to Catholicism.

I wasn't going to post this anniversary at all, but decided to do so as Casanova was illustrative of the lack of morals in European high society of his day.  He serves as an illustration of how gross and disgusting behavior in the age of Musk, Trump, Weinstein, Hefner, Cosby and Epstein isn't something wholly new to our own age.

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Easter Sunday, April 1, 1725. Bach's Easter Oratorio.

Labels: 1720s, 1725, Austria, Bach, Catholic, Christianity, Classical Music, Easter, Music, religion

Easter Sunday, April 1, 1725. Bach's Easter Oratorio.

Bach’s Easter Oratorio, the companion piece to his Passions was first performed in an Easter service in Leipzig, April 1, 1725.  The composer conducted.

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Monday, March 26, 1725. Monday of Holy Week for 1725.

Monday, March 26, 1725. Monday of Holy Week for 1725.

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Tuesday, March 6, 1725. Henry Benedict Thomas Edward Maria Clement Francis Xavier Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York born.

Labels: 1720s, 1725, Catholic, Christianity, Jacobites, Monarchy, Papal States, religion, Rome

Tuesday, March 6, 1725. Henry Benedict Thomas Edward Maria Clement Francis Xavier Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York born.

Henry Benedict Thomas Edward Maria Clement Francis Xavier Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York was born in Rome.  He was the last Jacobite claimant to the English crown.

He spent his entire life in the Papal States and became a cardinal.

He signed his will, Henry, Rex.

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Friday, March 2, 1725. Hodie prima feria sexta Quadragesimae anno 1725 fuit

Labels: 1720s, 1725, Catholic, Lent, religion

Friday, March 2, 1725. Hodie prima feria sexta Quadragesimae anno 1725 fuit

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Thursday, February 22, 1725. A burial at Tumacácori

Labels: 1720s, 1725, Apache People, Arizona, Catholic, children, Christianity, Death, Mexico, religion, Spain, Spanish Empire

Thursday, February 22, 1725. A burial at Tumacácori

En veinte y dos de febrero de mil setecientos y veinte y cinco años, como Teniente de Cura de éste Presidio, enterré de cruz baja a Diego, indio parvulo de nación Apache, de cuenta de Juan Ruis, soldado, y por ser así lo firmé en dicho día ut supra.

 Bachiller Thomas Anttonio Bezerra Nietto (rúbrica)

It was coincidentally the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter.

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Thursday, February 8, 1725. The death of Pyotr Alexeevich Romanov.

Labels: 1720s, 1725, Frederick the Great, Monarchy, Peter the Great, Prussia, Russia

Thursday, February 8, 1725. The death of Pyotr Alexeevich Romanov.

Pyotr Alexeevich Romanov, Пётр I Алексеевич, also known as Peter the Great, Czar of all Russia, and them Emperor of All Russia, died at age 52.

He is recalled for having carried out a policy of aggressive Westernization, not all of which stuck (he attempted to introduce the Julian calendar) and expansion that transformed the Tsardom of Russia into the Russian Empire.  He regarded the Russian people, his subjects, with some degree of contempt, finding them to be rude primitives.  Born into a reign that was closely united with the Russian Orthodox Church, he had an unusual interest in Russian Quakers and Dissenters and held Orthodoxy in some degree of contempt, which showed the degree of his power in that he was able to get away with it.

He was married three times, once to Eudoxia Lopukhina, when he was only 16.  She was a wife his mother had found, in the tradition of the Romanov monarchy,  He later divorced  her, something allowed in the Orthodox faith, and forced her to join a convent, although the couple did have three children before then.  He later married Marta Helena Skowrońska, the daughter of a Polish-Lithuanian peasant, whom had been his mistress for some time prior in 1724.  She converted from Catholicism in order to marry him. He later married Catherine, who was crowned crowned as Empress.  He had a total of fifteen children.

Was he great? Well, probably.  He engaged in constant warfare but was a success in expanding the Russian Empire.

Was he admirable, not in my book.

Funny thing about him is that the people for whom he was great, he didn't particularly admire, a trait he shared with Prussian Frederick the Great.

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Thursday, February 1, 1725. The Great East Siberian Earthquake.

Labels: 1720s, 1725, Geology, Russia, Siberia

Thursday, February 1, 1725. The Great East Siberian Earthquake.

The Great East Siberian Earthquake occurred.  It is arguably the earliest recorded seismic event in the region.  The quake had a magnitude of at least 7, and perhaps somewhat over 8.

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Friday, January 26, 1725. Foundation of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

Labels: 1720s, 1725, Catholic, Christianity, Education, religion

Friday, January 26, 1725. Foundation of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

Pope Benedict XIII issued the papal bull “In Apostolicae Dignitatis Solio recognizing the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, the De La Salle Brothers, or "Christian Brothers".

This is one of two Catholic religions orders dedicated to the education of children commonly known as the "Christian Brothers", which frankly causes a great deal of confusion.  Both have an educational mission.  Both have operated all over the globe, making this even more confusing, although the other organization is particularly associated with Ireland.

Catholicism became particularly associated with education in North America.  This was in part because public schools in the United States were de facto protestant schools, as the United States is a protestant country.  Catholic schools in many regions of the country came to be very good, and as a result they often were the private school of choice for many people in urban settings, irrespective of their religion.  This is still the case in many places.

In certain regions, religious schools were the only option.  This was the case, for example, in Quebec, where all education was afforded privately up until the "Quiet Revolution".  It was and is the case in Ireland where the the early Irish republican government basically foisted education upon the Church.

My grandfather attended a Christian Brothers school as a very young man, given that he left school at age 13.  He did not like it.

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Saturday, January 6, 1725. Peter the Great gets sick, again, and instructs Vitus Bearing.

Labels: 1720s, 1725, Colonial North America, Exploration, Peter the Great, Russia, Siberia, Vitus Bering

Saturday, January 6, 1725. Peter the Great gets sick, again, and instructs Vitus Bearing.

The mysterious disease that afflicted Czar Peter the Great returned, with a cold bringing it on.

In spite of the affliction, on the same day he issued instructions to Vitus Bering to prove definitely that Siberia was separated from North America and to find the nearest European settlement in the New World.

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Wednesday, October 11, 1724. Fort Drummer attacked.

Labels: 1720s, 1724, Abenaki people, American Colonial Militia, Colonial North America, Grey Locks' War, Indian Wars, Native Americans, Vermont