Pianella dated 1563 - Via Latini, 17

Pianella dated 1563 - Via Latini 19

Engraving showing the water fountain located opposite today's Il Terebinto restaurant. Montefiolo is seen in the background

An engraving dating from 1874 showing the partially ruined walls of Aspra

Aspra's Porta Romana as it was in the 1880s.

• Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, in the service of
  François I of France, sets out from Madeira on board La Dauphine for the New World to seek out a western sea route to the Pacific Ocean. On 17 April Verrazzano's expedition makes the first European entry into what is now New York Bay and sights the island of Manhattan. Verrazzano is renowned as the first European to explore the Atlantic coast of North America between Florida and New Brunswick. 
• Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba founds the city of Granada, Nicaragua, the oldest Hispanic city in the mainland of the Western Hemisphere. 
• Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro begins his invasion expedition near Colombia. 
• The Great German Peasants’ Revolt begins in Germany's Black Forest. This was Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising prior to the French Revolution of 1789. It failed because of the intense opposition by the aristocracy, who slaughtered up to 100,000 of the 300,000 poorly armed peasants and farmers.

• Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama, and
• German painter, Hans Holbein the Elder

The second oldest pianella that I have been able to find in Casperia dates from 1529 and is located in a corner on a wall beside a down pipe at Via Massari, 5. There was a lot going on in the world in 1529. This is only a small selection of what I could find.

• The Örebro Synod, held in February of this year, provides the theological foundation of the Swedish reformation. 
• War rages in the Horn of Africa with Christian Abyssinia increasingly invaded and reduced by Muslim armies from the coast. 
• In Denmark the Flensburg Disputation is held, a debate attended by Stadtholder Christian of Schleswig-Holstein—later King Christian III of Denmark—between Lutherans and the more radical Anabaptists. Johannes Bugenhagen, a close associate of Martin Luther, presides. The Disputation marks the rejection of radical ideas by the Danish Reformation. 
• On 9 April the pro-Catholic/anti-Reformation Westrogothian rebellion breaks out in Sweden. 
• The Diet of Speyer, a Diet of the Holy Roman Empire held in the Imperial City of Speyer in 1529 condemns the results of a previous Diet of Speyer held in 1526 and prohibits future reformation. 
• On 22 April the Treaty of Zaragoza divides the eastern hemisphere between the Spanish and Portuguese empires, stipulating that the dividing line should lie 297.5 leagues or 17° east of the Moluccas. 
• Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York, presides over a legatine court at Blackfriars, London, to rule on the legality of King Henry VIII of England's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. 
• In May, the Ottoman army under Suleiman I leaves
  Constantinople to invade Hungary. Buda is captured by the invading forces of the Ottoman Empire on 8 September. Vienna is besieged for the first time by Ottoman forces under Suleiman the Magnificent. The siege signalled the pinnacle of the Ottoman Empire's power and the maximum extent of Ottoman expansion in central Europe. With the campaign season drawing to a close, Suleiman abandons the siege of Vienna on 15 October, a turning point in the Ottoman wars in Europe. 
• On 21 June French forces in northern Italy are decisively defeated by Spain in the Battle of Landriano during the War of the League of Cognac. In August 5 Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V and Francis I of France sign the Treaty of Cambrai, or Ladies' Peace in the War of the League of Cognac. Francis abandons his claims in Italy, but is allowed to retain the Duchy of Burgundy. Henry VIII of England accedes on August 27. 
• On 1 September local natives destroy Sancti Spiritu, the first European settlement in Argentina. 
• German-born conquistador Ambrosius Ehinger founds the city of Maracaibo, Venezuela. 
• On October 26, Cardinal Wolsey, due to his failure to prevent Habsburg expansion in Europe and obtain an annulment of Henry VIII's marriage, falls from power in England. Thomas More succeeds him as Lord Chancellor. 
• The first sitting of the English Reformation Parliament takes place between 4 November and 17 December of this year. The Reformation Parliament was so-called because it was the Parliament that passed and enabled the major pieces of legislation leading to the English Reformation. 
• Occultist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa publishes Declamatio de nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus, “Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex", a book pronouncing the theological and moral superiority of women.

The third oldest date on a pianella I have been able to find is 1534 on a tile above a door at the top of the town under the municipal theatre at Via Sabo, 24. This particular tile is interesting in that it actually has two dates on it. It also lists 1608. Perhaps the building was built or restored in 1534 and then restored or altered again in 1608. Does this tile replace an older tile with only 1534 on it?

• England’s Henry VIII and the politics around his second wife
  Anne Boleyn figure prominently in 1534. In January the Parliament of England passes the Act Respecting the Oath to the Succession, recognising the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and their children as the legitimate heirs to the throne. Later Parliament passes the Act of Supremacy which recognised Henry VIII as the “Supreme Head of the Church of England.” This act also required an oath of loyalty from English subjects that recognised his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Sir Thomas More, Henry’s former councillor and Lord High Chancellor, who refuses to take the Oath of Supremacy is convicted of treason and confined to the Tower of London. Beheaded the following year. Four hundred years after his death, More is canonised as a martyr of the Catholic Church by Pius XI. 
• French explorer Jacques Cartier explores Newfoundland, while
  searching for the Northwest Passage. Later, on June 9, Jacques Cartier becomes the first European to explore the Saint Lawrence River, and one 29 June to see Prince Edward Island. The first recorded exchange occurs between Europeans and the First Nations people of the Gulf of St. Lawrence takes place 7 July in what is now New Brunswick.
• 15 August – Ignatius of Loyola and six others take the vows that lead to the establishment of the Society of Jesus, in Montmartre, Paris.
• In October, Huguenots post placards all over France attacking the Catholic Mass, provoking a violent sectarian reaction.
• On 6 December over 200 Spanish colonisers, led by conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar, found what is now Quito, Ecuador.
• In the same year, Manco Inca Yupanqui is crowned as Sapa Inca in Cusco, Peru by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, who succeeded his brother Túpac Huallpa, who had been the first puppet Inca Emperor installed by the conquistadors during the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire.
• Cambridge University Press is given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII of England, and becomes the first of the privileged presses.
• Gargantua is published by François Rabelais.
• Martin Luther's translation of the complete Christian Bible into German is printed by Hans Lufft in Wittenberg, adding the Old Testament and Apocrypha to Luther's 1522 translation of the New Testament, and including woodcut illustrations.
• The first book in Yiddish, Mirkevet ha-Mishneh, a Tanakh concordance by Rabbi Asher Anchel, translating difficult phrases in biblical Hebrew is printed in Kraków, Poland.

• In the two years since the previous pianella was installed more royal drama is unfolding in England. Catherine of Aragon, first queen of England’s Henry VIII dies. Meanwhile, his second queen, Anne Boleyn is arrested on the grounds of incest, adultery, and treason then later executed in the Tower of London. Later that year Henry marries Jane Seymour who dies the following year of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of her only child, a son who became King Edward VI. Jane Seymour was the only one of Henry's wives to receive a queen's funeral, and his only consort to be buried beside him in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. 
• In October of this year a popular uprising against Henry VIII's break with the Roman Catholic Church, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the policies of the King's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell breaks out in Yorkshire. It will be the most serious of all Tudor rebellions.
• Buenos Aires, Argentina is founded by Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza. 
• Protestantism is introduced in Denmark and Norway, by King Christian III. 
• Greek maritime pilot Ioannis Phokas (Greek: Ιωάννης Φωκάς), better known by the Spanish translation of his name Juan de Fuca, is born on the Ionian island of Cefalonia.

• Saint Francis Xavier arrives in Goa, India. 
• Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor allied with Henry VIII of England declares war on King Francis I of France. James V of Scotland and Sultan Suleiman I are allied to the French. In the Battle of Solway Moss, the English defeat Scotland's James V.
• Pope Paul III begins the Inquisition against Protestants. 
• The Spaniards found the city of Guadlajara in New Spain. 
• In the Renyin Palace Rebellion a group of Ming dynasty palace women fail to murder the Jiajing Emperor and are executed by slow-slicing. 
• Princess Mary Stuart succeeds her father James V as Mary I of Scotland. 
• Catherine Howard, 5th wife of Henry VIII is executed for adultery. 
• Lisa del Giocondo, the woman believed to be the subject of the Mona Lisa, dies. 
• The first contact of Japan with the West occurs when a Portuguese ship, blown off its course to China, lands Fernão Mendes Pinto, Francisco Zeimoto and António Mota in Japan. 
• Spanish explorer, navigator and conquistador Hernando de Soto dies. The Portuguese introduce muskets to Japan which are named Tanegashima 種子島, the location at which the introduction occured. 
• Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo lands in what is now San Diego Bay, and names it "San Miguel"; it will later become the city of San Diego. Cabrillo becomes the first European to set foot on Santa Catalina Island, California.

The 6th oldest terra cotta restoration date marker that I have found dates from 1548 and can be found at Via Nardi-Bruschi, 40. The brick is pock marked and the date is hard to read unless the light is perfect. In the year that this section of the street wall was restored or repaired and the pianella inserted:

• Firearms are used for the first time on the battlefield in Japan on 14 February 14 at the Battle of Uedahara 上田原の戦い in which warlord Takeda Shingen 武田信玄 experiences defeat for the first time at the hand of Murakami Yoshikiyo 村上義清.
• Ming Chinese naval forces commanded by Zhu Wan 朱紈destroy the pirate haven of Shuangyu, frequented by Chinese, Japanese, and Portuguese smugglers.
• On 30 June the Augsburg Interim issued by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V becomes law. It orders Lutherans to return to Catholic practices with some concessions
• On 7 July a marriage treaty is signed between Scotland and France whereby 5-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots, is betrothed to the future King Francis II of France. Mary leaves for France on 7 August.
• The city of La Paz, Bolivia, is founded 20 October.
• In December Siam attacks Tavoy beginning the Burmese–Siamese War of 1548.

Also in this year, a number of important people were born:

• Giacomo Boncompagni, illegitimate son of Pope Gregory XIII
• Jacopo Mazzoni, Italian philosopher
• Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher, astronomer, and occultist
• Francesco Soriano, Italian composer

Deaths of historical note include those of:

• Bernardo Pisano, the Italian composer
• Lorenzino de' Medici, Italian writer and assassin
• Catherine Parr, sixth and last Queen of Henry VIII of England

• The first Russian Embassy arrives in London on 27 February. 
• The Spanish settlement of Santa Ana de los Cuatro Ríos de Cuenca, Ecuador is founded by Spanish explorer Gil Ramírez Dávalos. Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, then Viceroy of Peru, had commissioned the founding and ordered the city named after his home town of Cuenca, Spain.
• Mary I of England joins her husband Philip II of Spain in his war against France. 
• The New Testament of the Geneva Bible, a Protestant Bible translation into English, is published in Geneva. 
• With the permission of the Ming Dynasty government of China, and for the benefit of both Western and Eastern merchants, the Portuguese settle in Macau. Direct Sino-Portuguese trade had existed since 1513, but this is the first official legal treaty port on traditional Chinese soil that will form a long-term Western settlement. 
• Welsh-born mathematician Robert Recorde publishes The Whetstone of Witte in London, containing the first recorded use of the equals sign and also the first use in English of plus and minus signs. 
• 3 December, the First Covenant of Scottish Protestants forms.

• Italian painter Jacopo Carucci "Pontormo". 
• Anne of Cleves, 4th queen of Henry VIII of England. 
• French explorer Jacques Cartier. 
• Italian-born English explorer Sebastiano Caboto, Sebastian, dies in London.
• Italian painter Franceso Ubertini, Il Bacchiacca, dies at 63

The next oldest terracotta restoration date marker I found on the other side of town at Via Nardi-Bruschi, 40 and it dates to 1567. So what happened in 1567. First of all, this was a very bad year for Mary Queen of Scots.

• On 10 February, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, husband of Mary,
  Queen of Scots, is murdered at the Provost's House in Kirk o' Field, Edinburgh. Three months later on 15 May, Mary marries James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell. A number of Scottish lords object to Mary’s rule after this marriage as it is widely believed that the Earl of Bothwell had murdered her previous husband. A month later, on 15 June an army of confederate lords faces Queen Mary and Bothwell’s army at Carberry Hill. Tricked into surrending, Mary Queen of Scots is imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle. On 24 July Mary is forced to abdicate and replaced by her 1-year-old son James VI. James VI is crowned King of Scotland at Stirling 29 July.

In other news: 

• A Spanish force under the command of Captain Juan Pardo establishes Fort San Juan, in the Native American settlement of Joara. The fort is the first European settlement in present day North Carolina. The city of Santiago de León de Caracas', Venezuela is founded by Diego de Losada on the Feast of Saint James on July 25. 
• The Second War of Religion breaks out in France on September 29, when Louis, Prince of Condé and Gaspard de Coligny fail in an attempt to capture King Charles IX and his mother at Meaux. The Huguenots do capture several cities, including Orleans, and march on Paris. The New Testament is first published in Welsh, in William Salesbury's translation from the Greek.
• Construction of Villa Capra "La Rotonda" in Vicenza, designed by Andrea Palladio, begins. It will be one of the most influential designs in architecture. 
• Rugby School, one of the oldest public schools in England, is founded. 
• Also in this year, Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi is born. 

This next date tile is very interesting and I thank Casperia historian Lorenzo Capanna for pointing out its location otherwise I doubt that I would have found it. The one is located very close to our house above a tiled tettoia, or canopy, over the door at Vicolo Serpenti, 1. The tile is interesting for a number of reasons. First of all there is a lot of text and it is written in a mix of Italian and Latin. 

DOPO VNO CINQVE 

Here is yet another pianella on a wall along the street we live on. It dates from the year 1580 and can be found at Via Latini, 23. If you look carefully at the image, you can see the letters A and D for Anno Domini separated by a cross in the top line. The bottom line reads DIES IIII MAII, May 4th.

• On January 31, Henry, King of Portugal dies with no direct heirs. This precipitates a succession crisis and a three year war between the claimants. The eventual winner, King Philip II of Spain is crowned King Philip I of Portugal establishing The Iberian Union, a dynastic union of the Crown of Portugal and the Spanish Crown that will last until 1640. The Union brings the entire Iberian Peninsula, as well as Spanish and Portuguese overseas possessions, under the Spanish Habsburg kings Philip II, Philip III and Philip IV of Spain though maintains Portuguese independence in Europe and throughout the Portuguese Empire. The Union lasts until the Portuguese Restoration War in which the House of Braganza is established as Portugal's new ruling dynasty.
• Elsewhere, England signs a commercial treaty with the Ottoman Empire in June. 
• On June 11, Spanish explorer and conquistador Juan de Garay founds Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• The Book of Concord, a collection of Lutheran confessional documents, is published on June 25.
• In July, The Ostrog Bible, the first complete printed Bible translation into a Slavic language—Old Church Slavonic—is first printed at Ostroh in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in modern-day Ukraine, by Ivan Fyodorov.
• On September 26th, Francis Drake returns to Plymouth,
  England from his voyage of circumnavigation on the Golden Hind, the second completed in a continuous voyage, and the first under its original commander.
• Jesuit missionaries arrive at the court of Akbar, ruler of the Mughal Empire.
• Perhaps the most earth-shattering event of 1580 is the Dover Straits Earthquake of April 6. It is one of the largest in the recorded history of England, Flanders or northern France. It is estimated to have measured 5.3 to 5.9 on the richter scale. Churches were damaged and houses collapsed over a wide area. In London, half a dozen chimney stacks and a pinnacle on Westminster Abbey came down. Two children were killed by stones falling from the roof of Christ's Church Hospital. Many Puritans blame the emerging theatre scene of the time in London, which was seen as the work of the Devil, as a cause of the quake.

Births of note in 1580 include those of:

• Stefano Amadei, Italian painter
• English explorer and Virginia settler John Smith
• English settler in America, founding settler of Hartford and Norwalk, Connecticut, Richard Webb
• Carlo Contarini, 100th Doge of Venice
• Giovanni Giacomo Semenza, Italian painter
• Francesco Mochi, Italian early-Baroque sculptor
• George Percy, English explorer, author, and early Colonial Governor of Virginia
• Francisco de Quevedo, Spanish writer
• Robert Gordon of Straloch, Scottish cartographer
• Frans Hals, Dutch painter, and
• Adriana Basile, Italian composer

Significant deaths this year include those of:

• Antonio Scandello, Italian composer
• Luca Longhi, Italian painter
• Vincenzo Borghini, Italian monk, artist, philologist, and art collector
• Andrea Palladio, Italian architect, and
• Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia, Italian anatomist

This tile is interesting for a number of reasons. I believe that it has been moved from an older section of the wall as it is on a modern stuccoed addition to the old tower on the north end of Piazza Macello, now Piazza Umberto Primo, near the beginning of Via Rivellini. The closest door to this section of the wall is Piazza Umberto I, 3. The other reason it is interesting is the religious inscriptions on the tile. 

The top line has the letters IHS, with a cross above the letter H followed by the name Maria. The IHS is a Christogram, a combination of letters representing the name of Jesus. The letters IHS are actually Latinised representations of the Greek letters Iota, Eta and Sigma which are the first three letters in the Greek spelling of Jesus: ΙΗΣΟΥΣ. So the first line reads Jesus Maria. The second line, with the date, 1582 includes the Titulis Crucis, the Latin initials I.N.R.I. which stand for Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, that is Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews, the inscription the Pontius Pilate is supposed to have affixed in Latin, Greek and Hebrew on the cross on which Jesus was crucified. One wonders why this particular tile was written this way. Perhaps the building was once owned by the Church... but I wonder if it might have been for another reason. I have heard tell that this tower, at one time, was the home of the Boia, or town executioner. Perhaps the solemn invocation was a prayer for the soul of the man who had such a terrible job... or it might have been something included there to ward off the negativity associated with the location. Who knows?

I am particularly interested in this pianella because 1582 is a date in which many significant events took place in Japan—some that actually took place in the region in which I used to live.

The late sixteenth century in Japan is known as Senkoku Jidai 戦国時代 or the Warring States Period. Emperors reign but do not rule.

The power of the Ashikaga Shogunate has diminished and Japan is divided up into various warring polities with various feudal lords each vying for hegemony. The introduction of firearms to Japan by the Portuguese hugely impacts the balance of power. In the midst of all this one feudal lord, Oda Nobunaga 織田信長, seems poised to unify all Japan under his rule.

• The Battle of Temmokuzan 天目山の戦い on April 3rd turns into the Takeda clan's last stand against the rising power of Oda Nobunaga and his ally Tokugawa Ieyasu. Takeda Katsuyori 武田勝頼 and his household commit suicide.
• Oda Nobunaga turns his attention toward western Honshū and the powerful Mōri clan. Oda's general, Hashiba Hideyoshi 羽柴秀吉, attacks a Mōri vassal Shimizu Muneharu 清水宗治laying siege to his stronghold at Bitchū Takamatsu Castle 備中高松城 which he isolates with flood water. 
• On June 21st, Akechi Mitsuhide明智光秀, a disgruntled Oda vassal, rebels and attacks Oda Nobunaga at Honnō-ji Temple in Kyoto. Oda's small retinue is overwhelmed and Oda ends his life through Seppuku 切腹, ritual disembowelment, among the flames of the burning temple. Akechi has himself declared Shōgun 将軍.
• The news of Akechi's coup d'état reaches Hashiba Hideyoshi who quickly arranges a peace treaty with the Mōri, and with Tokugawa Ieyasu rushs east to be the first to avenge Nobunaga and take his place.
• July 2nd, at the Battle of Yamazaki山崎の戦い, Hashiba Hideyoshi decisively defeats Akechi Mitsuhide's smaller army. Akechi is later killed while retreating to his domain.

Elsewhere in the world:

• Russia cedes Livonia and southern Estonia, to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth on January 15th.
• On February 24, Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian Calendar.
• On April 14, King James VI of Scotland signs a charter creating Tounis College, now the University of Edinburgh.
• On July 26, at the Battle of Ponta Delgada during the War of the Portuguese Succession, Spanish admiral Santa Cruz decisively defeats a larger mercenary fleet from France, England, supporters of the Portuguese claimant António, Prior of Crato, and the Dutch Republic, under Filippo di Piero Strozzi. It is the first engagement between large fleets of galleons, operating at any great distance from the mainland.
• A political conspiracy of Presbyterian nobles abduct King James VI of Scotland during the Raid of Ruthven on August 22nd.
• On Thursday, October 4 of the Julian calendar Pope Gregory
  XIII implements the Gregorian calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15. Saint Teresa of Ávila dies on October 4. She is buried the next day, October 15.
• Future English playwright William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway on November 29.
• On Sunday, December 9 of the Julian calendar France makes the next day Monday, December 20 of the Gregorian Calendar.
• Italian-born Jesuit, Matteo Ricci enters Ming Dynasty China via Macau where he begins missionary work. He is instrumental in creating the first Portuguese/Chinese dictionary and will become the first European allowed to enter the Forbidden City in Beijing.
• The Cagayan Battles in the Philippines are the only recorded clashes between European regular soldiers against Samurai warriors.
• The Douai-Rheims Bible New Testament is published. 
• English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occult philosopher, and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, John Dee practices angelic magic with scryer Edward Kelley, and develops the angelic Enochian language. Dee devotes much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy. He is also an advocate of England's imperial expansion into a "British Empire", a term he is generally credited with coining.

Notable births in 1582 include those of:

• Giovanni Lanfranco, Italian painter
• Scottish satirist and Latin poet John Barclay
• Early baroque era Italian composer Marco da Gagliano
• Italian Franciscan friar and saint Humilis of Bisignano
• Italian composer Severo Bonini
• Giulio Alenio, Italian Jesuit missionary
• Gregorio Allegri, Italian composer
• Japanese samurai and warlord Kobayakawa Hideaki 小早川秀

Deaths of note which occurred in this year include those of: 

• Four year old heir to the Tuscan throne, Filippo de' Medici
• Parma-born musician, composer and occultist, Giorgio Mainerio
• Soleto, Lecce-born philsopher, astrologer, alchemist and musician, Matteo Tafuri
• Mōri vassal and castellan at Bitchū Takamatsu Castle, Shimizu Muneharu 清水宗治
• Scottish historian and humanist scholar, George Buchanan,
• Eminent French physician, Laurent Joubert
• Renowned Spanish general and 3rd Duke of Alba, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo

Here is yet another restoration date marker from Via Tomassoli, just inside Casperia's Porta Romana. This pianella from 1590 can be found at Via Tomassoli, 10. In 1590:

• The Cortes of Castile approves the Millones, an indirect tax on food which will stay in effect in Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries. These taxes, however, are first imposed by Philip II initially as a temporary measure to replace the Spanish Armada lost during the attempted invasion of England. 
• At the Battle of Ivry, Henry IV of France defeats the forces of the Catholic League, under Charles, Duke of Mayenne. Later in the year Henry unsuccessfully attempts to besiege Paris. He is forced to raise the siege when Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, comes to its rescue with a Spanish army. Farnese eventually forces Henry to life the siege.
• The Treaty of Constantinople, also known as the Peace of Istanbul or the Treaty of Ferhad Pasha, is signed ending the Ottoman-Safavid War of 1578-1590.
• John White, governor of the Colony of Roanoke, returns from a supply-trip to England and finds his settlement deserted. After an unsuccessful search he returns to England on October 24.
• On September 15, Urban VII succeeds Sixtus V, as the 228th pope; he dies of malaria twelve days later.
• Also on September 15, the Neulengbach earthquake causes significant damage and some loss of life in Lower Austria and Vienna. The effects are felt as far away as Bohemia and Silesia.
• On December 5, Gregory XIV succeeds Urban VII, as the 229th pope.
• During the North Berwick Witch Trials, King James VI of Scotland questions Agnes Sampson who confesses to practising witchcraft.
• Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 destroys the last major pocket
  of resistance to his rule, the Hōjō clan, at the Siege of Odawara 小田原の征伐. The defeated Hōjō lord, Hōjō Ujimasa 北条氏政and his brother Ujiteru北条氏照 are forced to commit ritual suicide. Their Tea Master, Yamanoue Sōji 山上宗二 is sentenced by Hideyoshi to have his ears and nose cut off and then decapitated. In destroying the power of the Hōjō, Toyotomi Hideyoshi completes the work begun by Oda Nobunaga 織田信長 uniting all Japan under his rule.
• The Eighty Years War continues to rage in the Spanish held Netherlands. In this years between the Spanish are pushed out of southern Gelderland by the Dutch forces.
• A group of English merchants gains the right to trade in Ottoman territory, in return for supplying the sultan with iron, steel, brass and tin for his war with Persia.
• The compound microscope is invented by Hans and Zacharias Janssen.

Significant births during 1590 include those of:

• Edward Convers, early Puritan settler in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and one of the founders of Woburn, MA.
• Manuel de Faria e Sousa, Spanish and Portuguese historian and poet
• Ahmed I, Ottoman Emperor
• Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
• Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana, Italian singer and composer
• Emilio Bonaventura Altieri, later Pope Clement X
• William Pynchon, English colonist and fur trader in North America and founder of Springfield, Massachusetts

Deaths of historic note from this year include those of:

• Giambattista Benedetti, Italian mathematician and physicist
• Catherine of Ricci, Catholic prioress and saint
• Gioseffo Zarlino, Italian music theorist and composer
• Asahi no kata朝日の方, Japanese lady and Toyotomi Hideyoshi's half-sister、 and wife of Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu
• Francis Walsingham, English spymaster
• Pope Sixtus V
• Lodovico Agostini, Italian composer
• Pope Urban VII
• Japanese painter Kanō Eitoku 狩野永徳
• Italian Protestant Reformation clergyman, theologian and educator Girolamo Zanchi
• Philipp Nicodemus Frischlin, German philologist, poet, playwright, mathematician and astronomer 
• Ambroise Paré, considered one of the fathers of surgery and modern forensic pathology and a pioneer in surgical techniques and battlefield medicine.
• Nicholas Bobadilla, one of the first Spanish Jesuits
• Irish chieftain Somhairle Buidhe Mac Domhnaill, a.k.a. Sorley Boy MacDonnell 
• Maddalena Casulana, Italian composer, lutenist, and singer. She was the first female composer to have her music printed and published in the history of western music 

Here ends Part I of this blog post dedicated to the dated terracotta restoration markers found in Casperia. The second and last section of this blog post will start at the point we left off and continue until 2014. Stay tuned

Credits:
The majority of the information concerning the events which took place in the world at the time these restorations were taking place here in Aspra, later Casperia, were gleaned from Wikipedia, also the site called On This Day, and the online Encyclopedia Britannica.

Photo Credits:
Most of the images in this post are mine. I would like to thank Alessio Caffarelli and local historian Lorenzo Capanna for other images found in these posts. Some other images were scanned from the book Aspra e gli aspresi nella leggenda e nella storia by Giorgio Perrini.

GUIDED WALKING TOURS IN VANCOUVER'S HERITAGE NEIGHBOURHOODS: 

For those interested in my TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence awarded History Walks in Vancouver, I will be offering them on Saturday mornings in a number of Vancouver's historic neighbourhoods between February 24th and March 24th, of 2018 with private tours of those same neighbourhoods being offered for groups of five or more in English, Japanese and Italian during select Wednesdays and Sundays in the same period.

For more details regarding these History Walks, or to make a reservation, please click this LINK.

Remember also to follow me on Instagram for more photos from Casperia and Sabina @imlivinwrite

William Caxton, the first printer of books in English, prints his translation of Aesop's Fables on the 26th of March. On May 14, Charles VIII is crowned King of France at the age of 14 at Reims Cathedral. He may have been known as Charles l’Affable in France, but his unsuccessful descent into Italy in 1494 inaugurated the so-called Italian wars (called "horrendous" by Machiavelli): a long series of eight conflicts, through which the great European powers disputed control of the peninsula which ended only in 1559 with the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis. On July 6th, Portuguese sea captain Diogo Cão becomes the first European to find the mouth of the Congo River. On August 29th, Pope Innocent VIII becomes the 213th pope when he succeeds Pope Sixtus IV who died on August 12th.  The Treaty of Nottingham is signed on September 21st initiating a three-year truce between the kingdoms of England and Scotland. On

December 5th, Pope Innocent VIII issues the Papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, giving the inquisition a mission to hunt heretics and witches in Germany, led by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. Also in this year the first sugar mill becomes operational in the Gran Canaria.  The first cuirassier units, cavalry equipped with armour and firearms, are formed in Austria. The King of Portugal appoints a commission of mathematicians to perfect tables, to help seamen find their latitude. Maximilian I, Duke of Burgundy, orders foreign merchants to leave Bruges. Most merchants move to Antwerp, greatly contributing to its growth as an international trading centre.

• Huldrych Zwingli, leader of the Reformation in Switzerland
• Florence-born architect, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Italian architect
• Giulio Cesare della Scala, Italian humanist scholar, in Riva del Garda in Trentino.
• Joachim Vadian, Swiss humanist, scholar, mayor, physician and Protestant reformer
• Hosokawa Takakuni 細川高国, powerful military commander in the Muromachi period under Ashikaga Yoshiharu, the twelfth Ashikaga Shogun

• Saint Casimir, Prince of Poland
• Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales
• Poppi, Tuscany-born sculptor Mino da Fiesole
• Ippolita Maria Sforza, Italian noble. She was the first wife of Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, who later reigned as King Alfonso II of Naples
• Florence-born poet and author of Morgante, Luigi Pulci

Piazza San Giovanni Battista, 3

• Edward Teach (Blackbeard), English pirate

• Nicolas Fouquet, French statesman
• Tokugawa Ietsuna 徳川家綱, Japanese Tokugawa shogun
• Samuel Butler, English poet
• Thomas Blood, thief of the English Crown Jewels
• Baldassare Ferri, Italian castrato
• Lelio Colista, Italian composer and lutenist
• Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Italian sculptor
• Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, Italian architect and painter
• Marco Uccellini, Italian composer and violinist

The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in human history, as well as the deadliest European religious war in history resulting in eight million fatalities continues to rage in central Europe. Elsewhere, in the Low Countries, the eighty years long Dutch War of Independence (1568 - 1648) continues unabated. 

On February 22nd, Galileo publishes his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. On March 29th, the Treaty of Saint-Germain is signed, returning Québec to French control, after the English had seized it in 1629. On June 20, Charles I of England issues a charter for the colony of Maryland, named ostensively in honour of his queen, Henrietta Maria, though another theory is that the colony was named in honour of the Virgin Mary as its founder, George Calvert, was a convert to Roman Catholicism. Maryland was notable for having been established with religious freedom for Roman Catholics who, at the time, were persecuted in England. On June 20, two ships, the Saint Jean (250 tons) and the L'Esperance-En-Dieu, set sail from La Rochelle, bound for Acadia. On June 25, Emperor Fasilides, declares the state religion of Ethiopia to again be Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, and confiscates the lands of the Jesuit missionaries, relegating them to their base in Fremona. On July 23, three hundred colonists for New France depart Dieppe. Also in this year, the Portuguese are driven out of Bengal. King Władysław IV Vasa of Poland forbids anti-Semitic books and printings. Construction of the Taj Mahal begins. Catharina Stopia succeeds her spouse as Sweden's ambassador to Russia and becomes perhaps the first female diplomat in Europe.

• Adam Frans van der Meulen, Flemish Baroque painter specialising in battle scenes
• February 18 – Giovanni Battista Vitali, Italian composer
• March 13 – John Houblon, first Governor of the Bank of England (1694-1697)
• March 30 – John Proctor, Massachusetts farmer, tavern keeper
• April 12 – Henry Chauncy, British antiquarian
• Catherine of St. Augustine, French nun, nurse of New France
• John Locke, English philosopher
• Sir Christopher Wren, English architect, astronomer, and mathematician
• Johannes Vermeer, Dutch painter
• Jean-Baptiste Lully, Italian-born French composer

• Giovanni Battista Agucchi, Italian churchman, papal diplomat, and writer on art theory
• Tokugawa Hidetada 徳川秀忠, Japanese shogun
• Sigismund III Vasa, King of Sweden (1592–1599) and Poland (1587–1632)
• Archduke Charles of Austria
• Anna of Cleves, Duchess of Jülich-Cleves-Berg and Countess Palatine of Neuburg
• Giovanni Battista Crespi, Italian painter
• King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (in battle)
• Philippe van Lansberge, Flemish astronomer

March 12–13 – The Treaty of Pereyaslav is concluded in the city of Pereyaslav, during a meeting between the Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host and Tsar Alexey I of Russia, following the end of the Khmelnytsky Uprising in Ukraine against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which had started in 1648 and had resulted in the massacre of an estimated 100,000 Jews as well as a large number of Roman Catholic clergy.
April 12 – Oliver Cromwell creates a union between England and Scotland, with Scottish representation in the Parliament of England.
May 8 – Otto von Guericke demonstrates the power of atmospheric pressure and the effectiveness of his vacuum pump, using the Magdeburg hemispheres, before Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Imperial Diet in Regensburg.
June 3 – Louis XIV of France is crowned at Reims.
June 6 – Charles X Gustav succeeds his cousin Christina on the Swedish throne. After her abdication on the same day, Christina, now the former reigning queen of a Protestant nation, secretly converts to Catholicism.
July – The Russian Army seizes Smolensk, and the Thirteen Years' War starts between Russia and Poland over Ukraine.
July 10 – Peter Vowell and John Gerard are executed in London for plotting to assassinate Oliver Cromwell.
August – Oliver Cromwell launches the Western Design, an English expedition to the Caribbean to counter Spanish commercial interests, effectively beginning the Anglo-Spanish War (which will last until after the English Restoration in 1660). The fleet leaves Portsmouth in late December.
August 22 – Twenty-three Jewish refugees from Brazil settle in New Amsterdam, forming the nucleus of what will be the second largest urban Jewish community in history, that of New York City. In September, Congregation Shearith Israel is founded as the first synagogue in North America.
September 3 – The First Protectorate Parliament assembles in England.
November 23 – French mathematician, scientist, and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal experiences an intense mystical vision that marks him for life.

• February 3 – Pietro Antonio Fiocco, Italian composer
• March 10 – Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari, Italian painter
• September 16 – Philippe Avril, French Jesuit explorer
• December 10 – Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole, Italian painter

• Nicholas Culpeper, English botanist
• Francesco Mochi, Italian early-Baroque sculptor
• Luca Ferrari, Italian painter
• Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, French writer
• Hippolytus Guarinonius, Italian physician and polymath
• Alessandro Algardi, Italian sculptor and architect
• Orazio Grassi, Italian Jesuit priest, architect and scientist
• Pieter Meulener, Flemish Baroque painter
• Jakov Mikalja, Italian linguist and lexicographer

Pianella on shrine of Via Valle Tassignano courtesy of Lorenzo Capanna

Hudson's Bay Company Coat of Arms

June 1 – At Dover, England, Charles II of England and Louis XIV of France sign the Secret Treaty of Dover, ending hostilities between their kingdoms. Louis will give Charles 200,000 pounds annually. In return Charles will relax the laws against Catholics, gradually re-Catholicise England, support French policy against the Dutch, and convert to Catholicism himself. This treaty will force England into the Third Anglo-Dutch War.

June 15 – The first stone of Fort Ricasoli is laid down in Malta by the Order of St. John.

July 18 – Treaty of Madrid (1670): Spain recognises Jamaica and the Cayman Islands as English possessions.

August – Spanish frigates attack Charleston, South Carolina.

September 1–5 – William Penn and William Mead are tried in London, after a Quaker sermon.

November 24 – Louis XIV of France authorises work to commence on the construction of Les Invalides, a veterans' hospital in Paris, France.

December 15 – Welsh privateer in English service, Henry Morgan, recaptures Santa Catalina Island, Colombia.

December 27 – Henry Morgan captures Fort San Lorenzo, on Panama's Caribbean coast.

The first French settlers arrive on the Petite Côte, of modern-day Senegal.

• Giovanni Battista Bononcini, Italian Baroque composer, cellist, singer and teacher
• Maria Margaretha Kirch, German astronomer
• Eva Margaretha Von Buttlar, German mystic-libertine sectarian

• Charles of Sezze, Italian Franciscan friar and saint
• John Davenport, Connecticut pioneer
• Leonora Baroni, Italian singer
• Loreto Vittori, Italian singer and composer
• Claude Vignon, French painter, printmaker and illustrator
• Niccolò Zucchi, Italian astronomer and physicist
• Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
• William Neile, English mathematician and founder member of the Royal Society
• Jeanne Chezard de Matel, French mystic

This Pianella, high up on a wall above Via Tito Tazio, dates from 1784

This pianella, located on a wall above the entrance to Via Tito Tazio, 4 is perhaps one of the highest placed that I have come across so far here in Casperia as it is on the outside wall on the third story of a palazzo whose main entrance is on Vicolo Oratorio. I have to thank Paolo de Gregorio for drawing my attention to this hard to see restoration date marker. Every time I think I have found all of them, up pops another pianella. The Latin inscription reads: Prospectus HIC a Fundamentis, which translates, the facade (built) from the foundations.

So what was happening in the outside world when this palazzo wall was rebuilt—from the foundations—in 1784? 1784 was a year of geopolitical shifts:

• On January 6, The Ottoman Empire agrees to Russia's annexation of the Crimea in the Treaty of Constantinople. On the 14th of that month, the Congress of the United States ratifies the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain to end the American Revolutionary War. The influx of Loyalist refugees from the newly independent United States to Nova Scotia prompts Britain to partition the territory and create the Colony of New Brunswick. In the same year, Russia establishes a colony at Kodiak in Alaska. 
• In France, Antoine Lavoisier pioneers quantitative chemistry while Madame du Coudray, pioneer of modern midwifery, retires. In April of this year, Pierre Beaumarchais’ sequel to The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, premieres at the Comédie-Française in Paris. Later, on September 19, in France, the Robert brothers—Anne-Jean Robert and Nicolas-Louis Robert—and a M. Collin-Hullin, become the first people to fly more than 100km in the air, lifting off from Paris and landing 6 hours and 40 minutes later near Bethune after a journey of 186 kilometres. 
• Meanwhile, in the recently officially independent United States of America, Benjamin Franklin invents bifocal spectacles.

Births of historic significance in 1784 include those of: English geologist, palaeontologist William Buckland, and British Radical writer, free thought advocate Robert Taylor.

Deaths of historic significance in 1784 include those of: Italian musician Giovanni Battista Martini, and Spanish Franciscan missionary Junípero Serra who established the Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda and several missions in Alta and Baja California.

Paved walkway on Via Rivellini with the date 1800

• January 1 – The Dutch East India Company dissolves.
• February 7 – A public plebiscite inFranceconfirmsNapoleonas First Consul, by a substantial majority.
• March 14 – Papal conclave, 1799–1800: cardinal Barnaba Chiaramonti succeeds Pius VI as Pius VII, the 251st pope. He is crowned on March 21, in Venice.
• March 20 – Alessandro Volta describes his new invention, the voltaic pile, the first chemical battery, in a letter to the Royal Society of London.
• April 2 – The Treaty of Constantinople establishes the Septinsular Republic, the first autonomous Greek state since the Fall of the Byzantine Empire.
• April 6 – War of the Second Coalition: Siege of Genoa – General André Masséna is surrounded by 40,000 Austrian troops under Field Marshal Michael von Melas and blockaded by a strong British squadron
• April 24 – The U.S. Library of Congress is founded in Washington, D.C.
• June 2 – The first smallpox vaccination is made in North America, at Trinity, Newfoundland.
• June 4 – War of the Second Coalition: Siege of Genoa – The French army is evacuated from Genoa. Marshal André Masséna is allowed to march out, with all the honours of war. 
• Jam June 14 – War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Marengo – Napoleon defeats the Austrian troops near Marengo, Italy.
• June 15 – Convention of Alessandria (Armistice of Marengo): Austria agrees to evacuate much of Italy.
• July 2 – The Union with Ireland Act 1800 is passed by the Parliament of Great Britain; the Irish Parliament passes similar legislation in the following month, uniting the two kingdoms and abolishing the Parliament of Ireland.
• August 1 – King George III gives royal assent to the second Act of Union to unite the Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland (both ruled by him) into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, effective on January 1, 1801.
• September 4 – The French garrison in Valletta surrenders to British troops, who had been called at the invitation of the Maltese. The islands of Malta and Gozo become the Malta Protectorate.
• October 1 – Third Treaty of San Ildefonso: Spain returns Louisiana (New Spain) to France, in return for the Tuscany area of Italy.
• November 1 – U.S. President John Adams becomes the first US President to live in the Executive Mansion (later renamed the White House).

• Ányos Jedlik, Hungarian physicist, inventor of the dynamo
• Hyrum Smith, American Mormon leader
• Emperor Ninkō 仁孝天皇 of Japan
• Henri-Gustave Delvigne, French soldier, weapon inventor
• James Black, American bladesmith, creator of the original Bowie knife 
• John Brown, American abolitionist
• Giuseppe Gabriel Balsamo-Crivelli, Italian naturalist
• Charles Goodyear, American self-taught chemist, manufacturing engineer

• Abraham Rice, German-born rabbi, first ordained rabbi to serve in the United States
• Pelaghia Roșu, Romanian heroine
• Tarenorerer, indigenous Australian Tasman freedom fighter

• Kyra Frosini, Greek heroine
• Marc René, marquis de Montalembert, French military engineer, writer
• Niccolò Piccinni, Italian composer
• Jean-Baptiste Kléber, French general (assassinated)
• Francis V de Beauharnais, French nobleman, soldier, politician, colonial governor and admiral
• Lorenzo Mascheroni, Italian mathematician
• Gabriel Prosser, American slave revolutionary
• Jean-Baptiste Audebert, French artist, naturalist

1819, Via Sabo, 9

• Baldassare Verazzi, Italian painter 
• John Ruskin, English writer, artist, and social critic 
• Louise Otto-Peters, German women's rights movement activist 
• Walt Whitman, American poet, essayist and journalist 
• Justin Holland, American musician and civil rights activist 
• Allan Pinkerton, American detective 
• Prince Albert, Prince Consort to Queen Victoria 
• Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, 1st President of the South African Republic 
• Léon Foucault, French physicist 
• Annibale de Gasparis, Italian astronomer 
• George Eliot, British novelist 
• Felice Orsini, Italian revolutionary and leader of the Carbonari 

• Kamehameha I, King of Hawaii 
• James Watt, Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer and chemist

March 9 – Giuseppe Verdi's third opera Nabucco premieres at La Scala in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost operatic composers.

• Mary MacKillop, first Australian saint
• Arrigo Boito, Italian poet, composer
• Carl Jacobsen, Danish brewer, patron of the arts after whom the Carlsberg brewery was named
• A. Viola Neblett, American activist, suffragist, women's rights pioneer
• Mykola Lysenko, Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist.
• Stéphane Mallarmé, French poet
• Dominic Savio, Italian adolescent student of John Bosco. Savio was canonised a saint on 12 June 1954, by Pope Pius XII, making him the youngest non-martyr to be canonised in the Catholic Church
• David Herold, accomplice of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth
• Hermann Cohen, German-Jewish philosopher
• Scottish chemist and physicist James Dewar, inventor of the vacuum flask.
• Abdul Hamid II, Ottoman Sultan
• Giovanni Giolitti, 5-time Prime Minister of Italy
• Ōyama Iwao 大山 巌, Japanese field marshal, a founder of the Imperial Japanese Army

• Constanze Mozart, German-born wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Henry Shrapnel, English army officer and inventor
• Italian composer Luigi Cherubini
• Stendhal, French novelist
• Maria Dalle Donne, Bolognese physician
• William Hobson, Irish-born officer in the British Royal Navy, first Governor-General of New Zealand and co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi
• American Unitarian theologian and minister, William Ellery Channing
• Bernardo O'Higgins, first Chilean head of state after independence

In 1846, The Great Famine continues to devastate Ireland.
January 5 – The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Country with the United Kingdom. Later, on June 15, the Oregon Treaty establishes the 49th parallel as the border between the United States and Canada, from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The Milan–Venice railway's 3.2 km (2.0 mi) bridge, over the Venetian Lagoon between Mestre and Venice in Italy, opens. At the time of its completion is reigns as the world’s longest bridge.
Many Mormons begin their migration west from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Great Salt Lake, led by Brigham Young.
On February 14, United States president James K. Polk annexes the Republic of Texas, which is regarded as an early example of American imperialism. On February 19th, the newly formed Texas state government is officially installed in Austin. On April 25 The Mexican-American was breaks out over the disputed border of Texas. On May 8th, at the Battle of Palo Alto, Zachary Taylor defeats a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande at Palo Alto, Texas in the first major battle of the war. On  June 14th, American settlers in Sonoma, California, start a rebellion, the Bear Flag Revolt against Mexico and proclaim the California Republic. On July 7th at the Battle of Monterey: Acting on instructions from Washington, D.C., Commodore John Drake Sloat orders his troops to occupy Monterey and Yerba Buena, thus beginning the United States annexation of California. On August 22nd, the Second Federal Republic of Mexico is established.

Elsewhere:

On February 26th, the Liberty Bell is cracked while being rung for George Washington's birthday.
On March 9,  the First Anglo-Sikh War, which began a month earlier, ends with the signing of the Treaty of Lahore. Kashmir is ceded to the British East India Company, and the Koh-i-Noor diamond is surrendered to Queen Victoria.
May – The Associated Press is founded in New York.
On June 16 – Pope Pius IX succeeds Pope Gregory XVI as the 255th pope. He will reign for 31½ years (the longest definitely confirmed).
June 28 – The Saxophone is patented by Adolphe Sax.

September 10 – Elias Howe is awarded the first United States patent for a sewing machine, using a lockstitch design.
September 19 – The Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to two children in La Salette, France.
September 23 – Discovery of Neptune: The planet is observed for the first time by German astronomers Johann Gottfried Galle and Heinrich Louis d'Arrest, as predicted by British astronomer John Couch Adams and French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier.
October 16 – At Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. William T.G. Morton, a dentist, gives the first successful public demonstration of ether anaesthesia.
November 4 – The Donner Party, a wagon train of 87 settlers traveling to California, is stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains by the first of several snowstorms. By the time a relief party reaches the starving settlers three months later, only 48 survivors are left, many of whom have survived by cannibalism.
Canadian Abraham Pineo Gesner's (b. Cornwallis, Nova Scotia) research in minerals results in his development of a process to refine a liquid fuel from coal, bitumen and oil shale. His new discovery, which he names kerosene, burns more cleanly and was less expensive than competing products, such as whale oil.

Births of historic significance in 1846 include those of:

• M. Lewis Clark American founder of Kentucky Derby
• William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, American frontiersman, later showman
• Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish political leader
• Anna Kingsford, British spiritual writer, doctor, feminist and pioneering vegetarian
• Watson Heston, American cartoonist
• George Westinghouse, American entrepreneur, engineer
• Julia Lermontova, Russian chemist

Deaths of note include those of:

• María Trinidad Sánchez, heroine of the Dominican War of Independence
• Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician and astronomer
• Pope Gregory XVI
• Rodolphe Töpffer, Swiss author, painter, and caricature artist
• Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès, French geographer, author and translator
• John Ainsworth Horrocks, English-born explorer of South Australia
• Thomas Clarkson, English abolitionist 
• Maria Medina Coeli, Italian physician

House restored in 1856 in Paranzano on Via Roma, courtesy of Lorenzo Capanna

• Frederick William Vanderbilt, American railway magnate
• Booker T. Washington, American educator
• Granville T. Woods, African-American inventor
• Philippe Pétain, French soldier, statesman
• Sigmund Freud, Austrian

  Sigmund Freud

  neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis.
• Frank Baum, American author, poet, playwright, actor and independent filmmaker (The Wizard of Oz)
• H. Rider Haggard, English novelist
• Nikola Tesla, Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist who is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
• George Barnard Shaw, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate
• Diamond Jim Brady, American businessman and philanthropist
• Wilhelm von Gloeden, German photographer
• Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir, Icelandic women's right activist
• Kate Douglas Wiggin, American author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
• Robert Kajanus, Finnish conductor, composer and founder of the Helsinki Orchestral Society, Finland's first professional orchestra
• Hans von Bartels, German painter
• Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

• Thaddeus William Harris, American entomologist and botanist
• Khedrup Gyatso, 11th Dalai Lama
• Robert Schumann, German composer, pianist
• William Buckland, English geologist, palaeontologist
• Manuela Sáenz, revolutionary heroine of South America
• Francesco Bentivegna, Italian revolutionary

Via Massari 24 - 26,  courtesy of Lorenzo Capanna date 1868

• Vittorio Monti, Italian composer, violinist, mandolinist and conductor 
• Edward S. Curtis, American photographer, ethnologist, and film director 
• William Edward Burghardt. Du Bois, African American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor, the first African American to receive a doctorate at Harvard and one of the founders of the NAACP. 
• Emily Murphy, Canadian woman's rights activist, first female magistrate in Canada and the British Empire 
• Maxim Gorky, Russian author, political activist and founder of the socialist realism literary method. 
• Abdülmecid II, last Caliph of the Ottoman Empire 

• David Brewster, Scottish physicist, inventor and author 
• Jean Bernard Léon Foucault, French physicist 
• Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia 
• Kit Carson, American trapper, scout, and Indian agent 
• August Ferdinand Möbius, German mathematician and astronomer 
• Mongkut, Rama IV, King of Siam 
• Laura Secord, Canadian heroine of the War of 1812 
• Gioachino Rossini, Italian composer

Fountain below Casperia near Via Valle Tassignana

Restored, April, 1880

Helen Keller

• Vajiravudh, Rama VI, King of Siam
• Father Francis Browne, Irish Jesuit priest, famous for his last photos of the RMS Titanic
• Tom Mix, American actor
• Douglas MacArthur, American general
• W. C. Fields, American actor, comedian
• Helen Keller, American spokeswoman for the deaf and blind
• Tod Browning, American motion picture director, horror film pioneer
• Alessandro Guidoni, Italian air force general
• Guillaume Apollinaire, French poet
• Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands
• Chujiro Hayashi 林忠次郎, Japanese Reiki master
• Christabel Pankhurst, English suffragette
• John Boyd Orr, Scottish physician and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
• Sarah Knauss, American supercentenarian verified as longest-lived American ever
• Pier Ruggero Piccio, Italian World War I fighter ace, air force general
• Liberato Pinto, 78th Prime Minister of Portugal
• George Marshall, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

• Joshua A. Norton, self-anointed Emperor Norton I of the United States of America Lydia Maria Child, American novelist, abolitionist
• Victorio, Chiricahua Apache chief
• Alphonse Pénaud, French aviation pioneer
• Bettino Ricasoli, Italian statesman

Restoration Date marker on Fonte Varoni, courtesy of Lorenzo Capanna

• Antonio Gramsci, Italian Communist writer, politician
• Sam Jaffe, American actor
• Cole Porter, American composer, songwriter
• Bernhard Zondek German-born Israeli gynecologist, developer of first reliable pregnancy test
• Frederick Banting, Canadian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 

• Kalākaua, last reigning King of Hawaii
• Calixa Lavallée, composer of “O Canada”, the Canadian national anthem
• William Tecumseh Sherman, American general
• P. T. Barnum, American showman
• Sir John A. Macdonald, 1st Prime Minister of Canada, Father of Confederation
• Pierre Lallement, French inventor of the bicycle
• Pedro II, 2nd and last Emperor of Brazil

• Professor James Moriarty, fictional criminal mastermind in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short story "The Final Problem"

Stanley Cup

intention to donate the Stanley Cup. On March 31, the world's first fingerprinting bureau is formally opened by the Buenos Aires Chief of Police; it had been operating unofficially since the previous year. On April 15, the General Electric Company is established, through the merger of the Thomson-Houston Company and the Edison General Electric Company. On June 4, Abercrombie & Fitch is established by David T. Abercrombie. On June 7, Homer Plessy (who is black) is arrested for sitting on the whites-only car in Louisiana, leading to the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson court case. On August 4, the father and step-mother of Lizzie Borden are found 

Hatchet used in the murder of Lizzie Borden's parents

J.R.R. Tolkien

• J. R. R. Tolkien, South African professor, linguist, philologist, conlanger and author of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion
• Oliver Hardy, American comedian, actor
• Eddie Cantor, American actor, singer
• Italo Mus, Italian painter
• Mary Pickford, Canadian actress, studio founder
• Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, British (Scottish) inventor of radar
• Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron), German World War I fighter pilot
• Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia
• Basil Rathbone, British actor
• Pearl S. Buck, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate
• Haile Selassie I, Ethiopian emperor
• Arthur Compton, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• Alfred A. Knopf, American publisher
• Dink Johnson, American jazz musician
Angelo Siciliano, a.k.a. Charles Atlas, Italian-American strongman, sideshow performer
• Tazio Nuvolari, Italian racing driver
• Francisco Franco, Spanish dictator
• J. Paul Getty, American industrialist
• Ruth Chatterton, American actress, novelist, and aviator
• Stanley Price, American film, television actor

• Gerald Haxton, secretary and lover of W. Somerset Maugham
• Wu Shuqing, Chinese feminist, nationalist and revolutionary

Walt Whitman

• Louis Vuitton, world-renowned French fashion designer
• Walt Whitman, American poet
• Bahá'u'lláh, بهاءالله Persian founder of the Bahá'í Faith
• Polish-born feminist Ernestine Rose
• Deodoro da Fonseca, 1st President of Brazil
• Ernest Renan, French philosopher, philologist, historian and writer
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson, British poet

This is obviously not a proper terracotta pianella, but it is a date marker etched into wet cement in front of a small commercial building on Via Guglielmo Marconi marked December 11, 1967. There was a lot going on in the world in 1967. In theUnited States, the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War is causing social upheaval and giving birth to a growing anti-war movement. In the Middle East, growing tension between Israel and its Arab neighbours is about to erupt in the Six Day War. In Africa, the Igbo people of southeast Nigeria declare independence from Nigeria and establish the Republic of Biafra which is immediately attacked by Nigeria. During

On January 1, Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation. Expo 67 held in Montréal, Québec, Canada's main celebration during its centennial year is considered to be the most successful World's Fair of the 20th century. On January 14, the Human Be-In takes place in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; setting the stage for the Summer of Love. On January 15, Louis Leakey announces the discovery of pre-human fossils in Kenya; he names the species Kenyapithecus africanus.

On March 26, 10,000 gather in New York City for the Central Park be-in. On April 4, Martin Luther King Jr. denounces the Vietnam War during his sermon at the Riverside Church in New York City. On April 15, large demonstrations are held against the Vietnam War in New York City and San Francisco. The march, organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, from Central Park to the United Nations, drew hundreds of thousands of people, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harry Belafonte, James Bevel, and Dr. Benjamin Spock, who marched and spoke at the event.  On April 28, in Houston, Texas, boxer Muhammad Ali refuses military service. He is stripped of his boxing title and barred from professional boxing for the next three years. On May 11, the United Kingdom and Ireland apply officially for European Economic Community membership. On May 23, Egypt closes the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, blockading Israel's southern port of Eilat, and Israel's entire Red Sea coastline.     

Two weeks later, on June 5, the Six Day War begins. Israel launches Operation Focus, an attack on Egyptian Air Force airfields; the allied armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan invade Israel. On June 7, Israeli forces capture East Jerusalem without the use of artillery in order to avoid damage to the Holy City. The war ends on June 10 when Israel and Syria agree to a United Nations-mediated cease-fire. On June 12, in the case of Loving vs. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court declares all U.S. state laws prohibiting interracial marriage to be unconstitutional. On July 4, the British Parliament decriminalizes homosexuality. On July 6, in response to the declaration of Biafran independence on May 30th, Nigerian forces invade the secessionist Biafra.

On July 24, during an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declares to a crowd of over 100,000 in Montreal: Vive le Québec libre! On August 8, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is founded in Bangkok, Thailand. On September 3, at 05:00 local time, all road traffic in Sweden switches from left-hand traffic pattern to right-hand traffic. On October 8, guerrilla leader Che Guevara and his men are captured in Bolivia; they are executed the following day. On October 17, the musical Hair opens off-Broadway. It moves to Broadway the following April. On December 11, supersonic airliner Concorde is unveiled in Toulouse, France. On December 12, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, one of the seminal race relations films of the 1960s, is released to theatres.

1967 was a year of a number of historically important firsts. On January 12, Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with the intent of future resuscitation. On April 9, the first Boeing 737 takes its maiden flight. On May 27, Australia takes its first step in recognizing Indigenous rights when the Australian referendum of 1967 passes with an overwhelming 90% support, removing, from the Australian Constitution, two discriminatory sentences referring to Indigenous Australians. On June 13, Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall is nominated as the first African American justice of the United States Supreme Court. He is confirmed on August 30. On June 17, the People's Republic of China tests its first hydrogen bomb. On June 27, the first automatic cash machine (voucher-based) is installed, in the office of Barclays Bank in Enfield, England. On November 7, Carl B. Stokes is elected mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, becoming the first African American elected mayor of a major United States city. On December 3, Christiaan Barnard carries out the world's first heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. Also in 1967, St Christopher's Hospice, the world's first purpose-built secular hospice specialising in palliative care of the terminally ill, is established in South London.

Births of historic note from 1967 include those of: American television journalist, Anderson Cooper;

Deaths of historic note from 1967 include those of: Puyi,

Xuāntǒng Dì, the twelfth and final Emperor of the Qing dynasty, China's last imperial dynasty; Argentine communist revolutionary, Che Guevara; American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist, James Mercer Langston Hughes; American-born Parisian avant-garde salon hostess, cookbook author and lifelong partner to Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas; Jack Ruby, American nightclub owner and convicted assassin of Lee Harvey Oswald; American Astronauts: Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee, killed in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire; English playwright, author and diarist, Joe Orton;
Beatles Band Manager, Brian Epstein American singers: Woodie Guthrie, Otis Redding; Italian singer-songwriter, Luigi Tenco;

Totò

 American jazz trumpeter, Red Allen; American singer and actor, Nelson Eddy, American actors: James Dunn, Jayne Mansfield, Spencer Tracy, Robert Wahlberg; British actors: Vivien Leigh, Claude Rains, Basil Rathbone; and Italian actor, Totò.

Madoninna at the intersection of Via Fonte Varoni and Via Molelle

This date marker is on a small roadside shrine located out in the country at the intersection of Via Fonte Varoni and Via Molelle. 1990 was a year or important political shifts and changes to the world map. In this year, East and West Germany were united, as well as North and South Yemen. In this year the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania declare their independence from the Soviet Union and Namibia gains its independence from the Republic of South Africa. In Yugoslavia, separatist governments are elected in Slovenia and Croatia leading to the bloody dissolution of that country the following year. In 1990, Iran invades Kuwait, leading to the Gulf War of 1991, Nelson Mandela is 

Via Tito Tazio, 47 Rest. A. D. 1991

1991 was the year that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolved leaving fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent States in its place. It is also the year that South African Apartheid is ended. In 1991, the Cold War, which had its beginning in 1947, finally ends. Elsewhere in the world, various wars continue to rage. The Gulf War erupts when Iraq, which invaded and annexed Kuwait the previous year, is attacked by a 34 nation U.N. authorized coalition. This is also the year the terrible decade-long Yugoslav Wars break out between Serbia and other Yugoslav Republics which results in the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992. In the Caucasus, the South Osettian Oblast, created in 1922, declares its independence from Georgia. Georgian troops attack the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, starting the two year South Ossetian War. In the Americas, another civil war rages in El Salvador. In Africa, civil war still rages in Ethiopia, eventually resulting in the independence of Eritrea. Nearby in Somalia, another civil war breaks out with the overthrow of its president. On the west coast of Africa yet another civil war breaks out in Sierra Leone. 

Back in Europe, the Provisional Irish Republican Army launches several attacks in England, including a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street, and bombings at Paddington Station and Victoria Station. In Sriperumbudur, India, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and fourteen others are killed at a public meeting by a suicide bomber. 1991 was also a year of devastating volcanic eruptions. Mount Unzen in Kyushu erupts killing 43 people in a pyroclastic flow. To the south, in the Philippines, Mt. Pinatubo erupts killing 800 people. Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption is the second largest in the 20th century. Worse than the eruption of Mt. Unzen, 1991 is the year that the Japanese asset price bubble bursts sending the Japanese economy into a period of stagnation. On November 24, Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury dies in London from AIDS related pneumonia.

Otzi  South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology

Births of historic or cultural significance for 1993 include those of American singer, songwriter, and actress, Ariana Grande. Deaths of historic or cultural note from 1993 include those of: Italian film director Federico Fellini; Italian automobile manufacturer, Ferruccio Lamborghini; Mexican American civil rights activist Cesar Chavez; Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev; American jazz musician, Dizzy Gillespie; Frank Zappa, American guitarist and composer, Frank Zappa; Léon Theremin, inventor of the theremin; English writer (Lord of the Flies) and Nobel Prize laureate, William Golding; American preacher and author of The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale; actresses Audrey Hepburn, Lillian Gish, Helen Hayes and Myrna Loy; actors Stewart Granger, Raymond Burr, Leon Ames, Vincent Price, River Phoenix, and Bill Bixby. In 1993 Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and South Africans Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

1996, the year in which this restoration marker was installed at Via Garibaldi, 22, was a year dominated by the ongoing Iraqi disarmament crisis and a shocking number of deadly commercial airline crashes. 

In this year, a 6.6 M_w earthquake near Lijiang in South-west China kills up to 322 people, injures 17,000, and leaves 300,000 homeless. In Haiti, René Préval succeeds Jean-Bertrand Aristide as President in the first peaceful handover of power since the nation achieved independence in 1804. In Scotland, at the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be successfully cloned from an adult cell, is born.

Kennewick Man Photo -Smithsonian Magazine

In 1997, the Iraq disarmament crisis continues to dominate the news. In 1997, Algeria is at the peak of a brutal civil conflict punctuated by a number of terrible massacres after the Algerian military's cancellation of 1992 elections set to be won by the Islamic Salvation Front. In January of this year, Bill Clinton is sworn in for a second term as President of the United States and appoints Madeleine Albright as the first female Secretary of State.

On March 22, the Comet Hale–Bopp, which became a spectacular sight in the night sky since early 1997, makes its closest approach to Earth. A few days later, in San Diego, thirty-nine members of the Heaven's Gate cult commit mass suicide at their compound with the intention of teleporting to a spaceship which they believed was flying behind the comet. In April, the Pokémon anime debuts in Japan. Later in the year, over 700 Japanese children suffer epileptic attacks due to a Pokemon episode that contained repetitive visual effects. In May’s UK general election, Tony Blair’s Labour Party wins a landslide majority returning Labour to power for the first time in eighteen years. Later in the same month, the 13-kilometre Confederation Bridge, the world's longest bridge spanning ice-covered waters, opens between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, Canada. In June, the UK House of Commons votes for a total ban on handguns. The same month, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is published in London. On July 1, the United Kingdom hands sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China. The same month, the remains of Che Guevara, who had been executed in Bolivia in 1967, are returned to Cuba for burial. Also in July, spree killer Andrew Cunanan shoots fashion designer Gianni Versace dead outside Versace’s Miami residence. On August 31, Diana, Princess of Wales, is taken to a hospital after a car accident shortly after midnight in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris. She is pronounced dead at 4:00am.

Princess Diana’s funeral, which takes place in Westminster Abbey on September 6, is watched by over two billion people worldwide. In 1997 both Scotland and Wales vote for a devolved Parliament with the Scottish Parliament forming in Scotland and the National Assembly for Wales forming in Wales. On September 26, two earthquakes: one registering 5.6 and 6.1 on the Richter scale respectively, strike the Italian regions of Umbria and Marche in quick succession, causing part of the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi to collapse. On October 24, the Toyota Prius, the first hybrid vehicle to go into full production, is unveiled in Japan and goes on sale there on December 9. It comes to U.S. showrooms on July 11, 2000. On December 19, James Cameron’s Titanic premieres in the U.S. Ten days later, on December 29, Hong Kong begins to kill all the chickens within its territory (1.25 million) to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain., H5N1 avian influenza., which eventually kills six people. The virus was eliminated by killing the entire poultry population of Hong Kong. 1997 was the year in which Pakistani activist and Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai and Game of Thrones actress Maisie Williams were born. Deaths of historic note from 1997 include those of: Albanian-born nun, missionary and saint, Mother Theresa; Diana, Princess of Wales; Italian fashion designer, Gianni Versace, and his American serial killer murderer Andrew Cunanan; French French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, and filmmaker, Jacques-Yves Cousteau; Chinese revolutionary and Architect of Modern China, Deng Xiaoping; Emperor of Vietnam, Bảo Đại; American singer-songwriter, John. Denver; singer-lyricist, musician, and Hawaiian sovereignty activist, Israel Kamakawiwoʻole; American Beat poet, Allen Ginsberg; American Beat writer and visual artist, William S. Burroughs; Soviet writer and dissident, Lev Kopelev; Pulitzer Prize-winning American author, James A. Michener; Japanese film director, Juzo Itami; Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune; American actors:  David Doyle (Charlies Angels), Brian Keith, Robert Mitchum, Jimmy Stewart, and Burgess Meredith; and American actor and comedian, Red Skelton.

This interesting Six Hour Clock can be seen on the façade of Casperia's Porta Reatina, the gate facing Rieti. Six hour clocks, which would cycle four times during a day, were common in Italy up until Napoleon invaded and introduced a 12 hour system that cycled twice. You can see MM written at the bottom of the pianella, just below the clock, indicating the year 2000 in Roman numerals.

In 2000, the Second Chechen War, fought between Chechen Islamist separatists and Russia, was in full swing. In this year Russian and pro-Russian Chechen paramilitary forces capture the Chechen capital Grozny and establish direct control over Chechnya, though violent separatist resistance will continue for quite a few years. On January 18, the Tagish Lake meteorite impacts the Earth in northern British Columbia, Canada. On February 13, the final original Peanuts comic strip is published, following the death of its creator, Charles M. Schulz the day prior.  On August 14, Tsar Nicholas II

This date marker for 2003 is located on charmingly decorated stone retaining wall below a house on a bend of Via Meleta in the valley below Casperia's centro storico. 2003 is designated the International Year of the Fresh Water. In this year, Malta, Slovenia, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia approve joining the European Union in national referendums. In this year Belgium legally recognizes same-sex marriage, becoming the second country in the world to do so. On February 1, disaster 

Crew of STS-107 in orbit

2003 was the year in which Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was born. Deaths of historic note for 2003 include those of: Italian physician and microbiologist, Carlo Urbani; Canadian Nobel physicist, Bertram Brockhouse; American environmentalist and filmmaker, Timothy Treadwell; The Butcher of Uganda, President Idi Amin; The crew of STS-107, American astronauts: Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, Rick Husband, and William McCool; American-born Pulitzer Prize winning Canadian novelist and short story writer, Carol Shields; American historical fiction writer, Leon Uris; American record producer American dancer, actor, choreographer and singer, Gregory Hines; American

Nina Simone

 singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, and civil rights activist, Nina Simone; Italian opera tenor, Franco Corelli; British musician, singer, songwriter and record producer, Maurice Gibb;  American jazz flautist, Herbie Mann; American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer and composer, Barry White; American singer-songwriter and actor, Johnny Cash; English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer, Robert Palmer; American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader, Benny Carter; Greek-American director, Elia Kazan; American actor, singer, and dancer, Donald O’Connor; English-American comedian and actor, Bob Hope; American actor and comedian, John Ritter; American actor and dancer, Buddy Ebsen; American actor and choreographer, Gene Anthony Ray; American actors: Alan Bates, Charles Bronson, Art Carney, William Scott “Jack" Elam, Hope Lange, Gregory Peck, Penny Singleton, and Robert Stack, English actor,

David Hemmings; German actor, Horst Buchholz; and Italian actor, singer, composer, comedian, director and screenwriter, Alberto Sordi.

News from 2014, the year that Richard, I and Smokey moved to Casperia from Vancouver, is dominated by the ongoing crisis in Ukraine—which includes the Russian occupation and annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war between Ukraine and the Russian-dominated breakaway eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, the violent Rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a.k.a. ISIL, and the outbreak of the deadly West African Ebola virus epidemic. 

In February, the West African Ebola virus epidemic begins, infecting at least 28,616 people and killing at least 11,310 people. From February 7 to 23, the XXII Olympic Winter Games, the most expensive Games in the history of the Olympics so far, are held in Sochi, Russia. On March 8, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370—a Boeing 777 airliner en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur—disappears over the Gulf of Thailand with 239 people on board. The aircraft is presumed to have crashed into the Indian Ocean. During an emergency meeting on March 24, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Germany, France, Japan, and Canada temporarily suspend Russia from the G8 in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea five days after the very controversial Crimean Status Referendum. On March 27, the United Nations General Assembly passes Resolution 68/262, recognizing Crimea within Ukraine's international borders and rejecting the validity of the 2014 Crimean referendum. On April 7, the Donetsk People's Republic unilaterally declares its independence from Ukraine. On April 10, in response to the 2014 Crimean crisis, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passes a resolution to temporarily strip Russia of its voting rights; its rights to be represented in the Bureau of the Assembly, the PACE Presidential Committee, and the PACE Standing Committee; and its right to participate in election-observation missions. On April 14, an estimated 276 girls and women are abducted from a school in Chibok, Nigeria by Boko Haram Islamist militants and held hostage. On April 25, the water source for Flint, Michigan is changed, starting the Flint water crisis.

Deaths of historic significance from 2014 include those of: Ariel Sharon, 11th Prime Minister of Israel; Eduard Shevardnadze, 2nd President of Georgia; Jean-Claude Duvalier, 41st President of Haiti; American poet and author and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou; American actress, poet, playwright and civil rights activist, Ruby Dee; American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist, Pete Seeger; Colombian Nobel Prize winning author, Gabriel García Márquez; Canadian author and environmentalist, Farley Mowat; Indian yoga teacher and author, B. K. S. Iyengar; Dominican-American fashion designer, Oscar de la Renta; Trinidadian-American actor, dancer, choreographer, singer, director and painter, Geoffrey Holder; American actress, dancer, and diplomat, Shirley

So there you have it. Over the course of the six years that I have been living here in Casperia I, with the help of various people, have found and catalogued 67 confirmed date markers—most of them terracotta pianelle—two of which have two dates marked on them. This particular post has taken a long time to complete. One of the reasons it has taken so long is that fact that people keep finding me more date markers. Some of these are located in high, hard to see and difficult to photograph places. Some are located on houses, fountains and shrines out in the countryside. Others still are actually not visible to the general public as they are located inside private houses. I am sure that as soon as I publish this post, more people will come forward with other date markers I haven't seen yet. That suites me just fine. The important thing is to locate, photograph and record as many as we can find.  

The other day, I was walking home along Via Rivellini and looked up just before the intersection with Via Massari and noticed this terracotta pianella, high on a wall of a house whose entrance must be off Via Latini. If you stand at the intersection and look up at the wall you can see an inverted terracotta roof tile jutting out of the wall like a drainage spout. The pianella is below and to the left of the inverted roof tile. I believe that this is yet another date marker but my cell phone camera doesn't have a good enough zoom to read what might be on the pianella. I will need to get some binoculars or a camera with a telephoto lens. Better still, it would be great if someone who has a drone with a camera mounted on it would use it to take a close up of it. As far as I can see, straining my eyes and using my imagination, it looks like there might be the letters IHS: Iota, Eta and a Latinized Sigma—the first three letters of Jesus' name in Greek—above a date from the 1700s. Hopefully we can solve this mystery sometime soon. 

Over the next while, I hope to revisit all these date markers and, in better light conditions and with a better camera, take higher quality pictures of them. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this very long post! The next time you visit Casperia, take a wander through the maze of vie and vicoli and see how many pianelle you can find.