Sir John Ninian Comper (1864 – 1960). Scottish Gothic-Revival Architect.

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,

unless otherwise stated.

Interior of Saint Mary The Virgin,

Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England.

Sir John Ninian Comper designed this Church.

Image: ST MARY THE VIRGIN, WELLINGBOROUGH

The spectacular Interior of Saint Mary's, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England. The Church is little more than a Century old and was designed by the highly-regarded architect, Sir Ninian Comper. The Church is extremely ornate, but never vulgar, and the Golds and Blues blend in perfectly well with the local Deep-Golden Stone. The Church is in the Anglo-Catholic Tradition 
of The Church of England.

Photo: 18 August 1997.

Source: From geograph.org.uk.

Author: nick macneill.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Sir John Ninian Comper (1864–1960) was a Scottish-born architect. He was one of the last of the great Gothic Revival architects, noted for his Churches and their furnishings. He is well known for his Stained Glass, his use of colour and his subtle integration of Classical and Gothic elements, which he described as "unity by inclusion".

Comper was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, the eldest of five children of Ellen Taylor, of Hull, and the Reverend John Comper, Rector of St John's, Aberdeen (and, later, St Margaret of Scotland). He was educated at Glenalmond School, in Perthshire, and attended a year at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. On moving to London, he was Articled to Charles Eamer Kempe, and, later, to George Frederick Bodley and Thomas Garner. His fellow-Scot, William Bucknall, took him into partnership in London in 1888 and Ninian was married to Grace Bucknall in 1890. Bucknall and Comper remained in partnership until 1905.

Reredos, in Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England, designed by Comper.

Reredos (Altar Screen), with Tester and Rood Figures, designed by Sir Ninian Comper, 1922.

Photographer: Richard Barton-Wood.

Date: 1922 (object created); 27 February 2007 (original upload date).

Source: Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred to

Commons using CommonsHelper.

Author: Sir Ninian Comper (creator of the object);

Photographer and Original uploader was Richard Barton-Wood.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Sir John Ninian Comper's ecclesiastical commissions include:

A line of windows in the North Wall of the Nave of Westminster Abbey;

Saint Peter's Parish Church, Huddersfield, Yorkshire, the Baldachino/Ciborium, High Altar and
East Window, in memory of the Dead of the Great War;

Saint Mary's, Wellingborough;

Saint Michael and All Angels, Inverness;

Lady Chapel at Downside Abbey,Somerset;

the Ciborium, and House Chapel extension, for the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, in Oxford (now Saint Stephen's House, Oxford);

Saint Cyprian's, Clarence Gate, London;

Lady Chapel at Saint Matthew's, Westminster;

Lady Chapel and Gilded Paintings in the Chancel of All Saints, Margaret Street, London.

The Sanctuary, All Saints Church, 

Margaret Street, London.

One of Sir John Ninian Comper's commissions.

Photo: 3 November 2001.

Source: From geograph.org.uk; transferred by 

User:Kurpfalzbilder.de using geograph_org2commons.

Author: John Salmon.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Comper is noted for re-introducing the 'English Altar', an Altar surrounded by Riddel Posts. [Images, and documentary mentions of early examples [of Ciboria], often have Curtains, called tetravela, hung between the Columns; these Altar-Curtains were used to cover, and then reveal, the view of the Altar by the Congregation at points during Services — exactly which points varied, and is often unclear. Altar-Curtains survived the decline of the Ciborium in both East and West, and in English are often called "Riddels" (from French, rideau, a word once also used for ordinary domestic curtains).

Charles Eamer Kempe, (1860).

Upon moving to London, John Ninian Comper was Articled to Charles Eamer Kempe.

Charles Eamer Kempe (29 June 1837 – 29 April 1907) was a Victorian Stained Glass designer and manufacturer. His studios produced over 4,000 windows and also designs for Altars and Altar Frontals, furniture and furnishings, Lichgates and Memorials, that helped to define a later 19th-Century Anglican style. The list of English Cathedrals containing examples of his work includes: Chester, Gloucester, Hereford, Lichfield, Wells, Winchester, York.

This File: 21 July 2006.

User: The Wednesday Island.

Source: Found at [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/peter.fairweather/docs/kempe.htm].

Author: Unknown.

(Wikipedia)

A few Churches have "Riddle Posts", or "Riddel Posts", around the Altar, which supported the Curtain-Rails, and perhaps a Cloth stretched above. Such an arrangement can be seen in Folio 199v of the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Late-Mediaeval examples in Northern Europe were often topped by Angels, and the Posts, but not the Curtains, were revived in some new or refitted Anglo-Catholic Churches by Ninian Comper and others around 1900.

Altar Frontal (Antependium) designed by Charles Eamer Kempe.

Upon moving to London, John Ninian Comper was Articled to Charles Eamer Kempe.

Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART

Altar Frontal (Antependium) designed by Charles Eamer Kempe.

Upon moving to London, John Ninian Comper was Articled to Charles Eamer Kempe.

Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART

Altar Frontal (Antependium) designed by Charles Eamer Kempe.

Upon moving to London, John Ninian Comper was Articled to Charles Eamer Kempe.

Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART

Altar Frontal (Antependium) designed by Charles Eamer Kempe.

Upon moving to London, John Ninian Comper was Articled to Charles Eamer Kempe.

Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART

In earlier periods, the Curtains were closed at the most Solemn part of The Mass, a practice that continues to the present day in The Coptic and Armenian Churches. A comparison to the Biblical Veil of The Temple was intended. The small domed structures, usually with Red Curtains, that are often shown near The Writing Saint in early Evangelist portraits, especially in the East, represent a Ciborium, as do the structures surrounding many manuscript portraits of Mediaeval Rulers.]

English: Saint John the Baptist Parish Church, Cardiff, Wales.

Stained Glass window (1915) by Ninian Comper: 

Saint Luke painting Madonna and Child (detail).

Deutsch: Cardiff (Wales). Pfarrkirche St. Johannes der Täufer -

Buntglasfenster (1915) von Ninian Comper:

Heiliger Lukas malt Madonna mit Kind (Detail).

Photo: 28 July 2011.

Source: Own work.

Author: Wolfgang Sauber.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Comper designed a number of remarkable Altar Screens (Reredos), inspired by Mediaeval originals. Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, has one of the finest examples.

Only one major ecclesiastical work of Comper's is in the United States, the Leslie Lindsey Chapel of Boston's Emmanuel Episcopal Church. The work is an all-encompassing product of, and testimony to, Comper's design capability, comprising the entire decorative scheme of the Chapel, designed by the architectural firm of Allen & Collins. Comper designed its Altar, Altar Screen, Pulpit, Lectern, dozens of statues, all its furnishings and appointments, and most notably the Stained Glass windows. The Chapel commemorates Leslie Lindsey and Stewart Mason, her husband of ten days, who were married at Emmanuel Church, and perished when the Lusitania was torpedoed in 1915.

Detail of Reredos at Saint James Church,

High Melton, England, by Ninian Comper.

Photo: 27 July 2007.

Source: Own work.

Author: Dearnesman.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Sir John Ninian Comper's Rood Screen, 

Saint John the Baptist Church,

Lound, Nottinghamshire, England.

Photo: 24 September 2009.

Source: From geograph.org.uk.

Author: Evelyn Simak.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Saint John the Baptist's Church 1507412 - 1507426 , in Lound, is widely known as the 'Golden Church', its fame originating from the generosity of Father Booth Lyes, a past Rector, who employed Sir Ninian Comper's genius to restore it. The Round Tower 1507419 - the oldest part of the Church and believed to be Early-Norman - was probably rebuilt at some later time. The Church was extensively restored in 1912/1913. The High Altar 1507434 was raised on new flooring, and richly decorated Posts, surmounted by gilded bronze Angels, support curtains of Spanish silk. 

Below the Altar, Ninian Comper's magnificent Rood Screen is adjoined at the South End by the Altar of Our Lady, above which Saint Mary Salome, Saint Mary the Virgin, and Saint Elizabeth, are depicted on boards with richly gilded gesso backgrounds 1507432. By Comper is also the only modern wall painting in Suffolk depicting a Saint Christopher 1507439 - the Saint is surrounded by a water mill, with a Suffolk Punch horse and its rider, waiting patiently in front of it, and a portrait of Sir Ninian driving his Rolls Royce along the river bank. The airplane, at top right, 

was added during the 1964 restoration of the painting. 

The Organ Case 1507447, at the West End of the Church, was installed in 1913. The Organ 

was built by Harrison & Harrison Ltd, of Durham. The original Norman Font Bowl 

now serves as a base for the Pulpit. The present Octagonal Font 1507445 - given in 1389

by Robert Bertelot - is of the traditional East Anglian type and the inscription 

at its base, commemorating the donor, is still legible. Saint John the Baptist's Church 

has a 'Welcome' banner above the South Doorway and is open every day.

Saint Mary The Virgin Church,

Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England.

One of Sir John Ninian Comper's masterpieces of creation.

Image: ST MARY THE VIRGIN, WELLINGBOROUGH

From 1912, Ninian and Grace lived in London at The Priory, Beulah Hill, a house designed by Decimus Burton (1800–1881), where he entertained friends such as John Betjeman. He had a studio nearby at Knights Hill, close to the world's first Gothic Cemetery at West Norwood. After the studio was destroyed in World War II, it was relocated to a building in his garden, which had previously been used by his son, Nicholas Comper (1897–1939), to design aircraft. Comper was knighted by King George VI in 1950.

On 22 December 1960, he died in The Hostel of God (now Trinity Hospice) in Clapham, London. His body was brought back to Norwood for cremation at West Norwood Cemetery. His ashes were then interred beneath the windows he designed in Westminster Abbey.

The Ascension Of Our Lord.

Text is from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless otherwise stated.

The Ascension of Our Lord.
Station at Saint Peter's.
Plenary Stational Indulgence.

Double of The First-Class
   with Privileged Octave of The Third Order.

White Vestments.

[Editor: The Paschal Candle is extinguished after The Gospel.]

While they looked on,

He was raised up.

Illustration: UNA VOCE OF ORANGE COUNTY

It is in the Basilica of Saint Peter's, Rome, Dedicated to one of the chief witnesses of Our Lord's Ascension, that this Mystery, which marks the end of Our Lord's Earthly Life, is "this day" (Collect) kept.

In the forty days, which followed His Resurrection, Our Redeemer laid the foundations of His Church to which He was going to send The Holy Ghost.

The Introit at The Ascension Day Latin Mass,

at the Institute Saint Philipp Neri, Berlin, Germany.

Available on YouTube at

https://youtu.be/pFgTmZbe0Zw?list=PLFB-WTS5nvTyW-6iFGamei8-wqUbsZGah

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DAS INSTITUT ST. PHILIPP NERI IST DRINGEND

AUF IHRE UNTERSTÜTZUNG ANGEWIESEN.

All The Master's teachings are summed up in the Epistle and Gospel for today. Then, He left this Earth and the Introit, Collect, Epistle, Alleluia, Gospel, Offertory, Secret, Preface and Communion, celebrate His Glorious Ascension into Heaven, where the Souls He had freed from Limbo escort Him (Alleluia), and enter in His train into the Heavenly Kingdom, where they share more fully in His Divinity.

The Ascension sets before us the duty of raising our hearts to God. So, in the Collect, we are led to ask that we may dwell with Christ in Spirit in the Heavenly Realms, where we are called one day to dwell in our Risen Bodies.

During The Octave, the Credo is said: "I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God . . . Who ascended into Heaven . . . He sitteth at the Right-Hand of The Father". The Gloria speaks in the same sense: "O, Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son . . . Who sittest at the Right-Hand of The Father, have mercy upon us."

The Gloria at The Ascension Day Latin Mass,

at the Institute Saint Philipp Neri, Berlin, Germany.

Available on YouTube at

https://youtu.be/vR5RFDgdxJM?list=PLFB-WTS5nvTyW-6iFGamei8-wqUbsZGah

In the Proper Preface, which is said until Pentecost, we give thanks to God because His Son, The Risen Christ, "after His Resurrection, appeared and showed Himself to all His Disciples; and, while they beheld Him, was lifted up into Heaven".

In the same way, during the whole Octave, a Proper Communicantes of The Feast is said, in which The Church reminds us that she is keeping the day on which the only-begotten Son of God set at the Right-Hand of His Glory the substance of our frail human nature, to which He had united Himself in the Mystery of The Incarnation.

The Collect and Epistle at The Ascension Day Latin Mass,

at the Institute Saint Philipp Neri, Berlin, Germany.

Available on YouTube at

https://youtu.be/zqCwwj02nx8?list=PLFB-WTS5nvTyW-6iFGamei8-wqUbsZGah

We are reminded daily in the Liturgy, at the Offertory Suscipe Sancta Trinitas, and in the Canon Unde et memores, that, at Our Lord's command, The Holy Sacrifice is being offered in memory of "The Blessed Passion of the same Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord," and also His Resurrection from Hell and His Glorious Ascension into Heaven.

The truth is that man is saved only by the Mysteries of The Passion and Resurrection united with that of The Ascension. "Through Thy Death and Burial, through Thy Holy Resurrection, through Thy Admirable Ascension, deliver us, O Lord" (Litany of the Saints).

The Credo at The Ascension Day Latin Mass,

at the Institute Saint Philipp Neri, Berlin, Germany.

Available on YouTube at

https://youtu.be/G5r2LzHa-hM?list=PLFB-WTS5nvTyW-6iFGamei8-wqUbsZGah

Let us offer The Divine Sacrifice to God in memory of The Glorious Ascension of His Son (Suscipe, Unde et memores); while we nourish within our Souls an ardent desire for Heaven, that "delivered from present dangers," we may "attain to Eternal Life" (Secret).

Every Parish Priest Celebrates Mass for the people of his Parish.

Vigil Of The Ascension.

Text is from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless otherwise stated.

Vigil of The Ascension.

White Vestments.

Stained-Glass Window, depicting The Ascension,

in the Church of Saint George,

Hardingham, Norfolk, England.

Photo: 17 July 2009.

Source: From geograph.org.uk

Author: John Salmon

(Wikimedia Commons)

Apart from The Rogations, The Church is filled with joy, and, assuming White Vestments, is preparing for the Solemn Feast of The Ascension by a special kind of Vigil, when the Gloria in Excelsis is sung. No Fasting or Abstinence is observed.

The Mass abounds in outbursts of joy because The Saviour of mankind is about to enter triumphantly in Heaven into the Glory of The Father after delivering us from Satan and sin.

Charles Eamer Kempe (1837 - 1907). Victorian Stained-Glass Designer. "If I Was Not Permitted To Minister In The Sanctuary, I Would Use My Talents To Adorn It".

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.

Stained-Glass, in the West Window of the South Transept of Bristol Cathedral, featuring, from left:

King Alfred the Great; the writer, Richard Hakluyt; the Priest and Theologian, Richard Hooker;

and the playwright and poet, William Shakespeare.

Date: Circa 1905.

Source: Bristol Cathedral.

Author: Charles Eamer Kempe.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Charles Eamer Kempe, (1860).

Charles Eamer Kempe (29 June 1837 – 29 April 1907) was a Victorian Stained-Glass designer

and manufacturer. His studios produced over 4,000 windows and also designs for Altars and Altar Frontals, Furniture and Furnishings, Lichgates and Memorials, that helped to define a later

19th-Century Anglican Style. The list of English Cathedrals containing examples of his work includes: Chester, Gloucester, Hereford, Lichfield, Wells, Winchester, York.

This File: 21 July 2006.

User: The Wednesday Island.

Source: Found at [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/peter.

fairweather/docs/kempe.htm].

Author: Unknown.

(Wikipedia)

Charles Eamer Kempe (29 June 1837 – 29 April 1907) was a Victorian Stained-Glass designer and manufacturer. His studios produced over 4,000 windows and also designs for Altars and Altar Frontals, furniture and furnishings, Lichgates (Lychgates) and Memorials, that helped to define a Later-19th-Century Anglican Style. The list of English Cathedrals containing examples of his work includes: Chester, Gloucester, Hereford, Lichfield, Wells, Winchester, York.

Charles Kempe was born at Ovingdean Hall, near Brighton, West Sussex, in 1837. He was the youngest son of Nathaniel Kemp, a cousin of the Thomas Read Kemp, a politician and property developer responsible for the Kemptown area of Brighton [Note: Kemp added the final "e" to his surname in later life], and the maternal grandson of Sir John Eamer, who served as Lord Mayor of London in 1801.

Interior of Church of Saint Paul, Mirfield, West Yorkshire, England, designed by William Swinden Barber in 1881. Showing a particularly fine window on the South Wall, by Charles Eamer Kempe. The East and West Windows were there in 1881 at the Consecration ceremony, but the date of this one is unknown - possibly 1902, after the Second Boer War, since it shows war-like Mediaeval heroes, King Arthur, Saint George, and Saint Oswald (Oswald of Northumbria).

Photo: 8 April 2014.

Source: Own work.

Author: Linda Spashett Storye book.

(Wikimedia Commons)

After attending Twyford School, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford, where he was influenced by the Anglo-Catholic Tractarian revival and considered a vocation to the Priesthood. When it became clear that his severe stammer would be an impediment to preaching, Kempe decided that "if I was not permitted to Minister in the Sanctuary, I would use my talents to adorn it", and subsequently went to study architecture with the firm of a leading ecclesiastical architect, George Frederick Bodley, where he learned the aesthetic principles of Mediaeval Church Art, particularly Stained-Glass.

During the 1860s, Kempe collaborated with Bodley on the internal painting of two Churches, All Saints, Jesus Lane, in Cambridge, and Saint John’s, The Brook, in Liverpool. Later, in 1892, Bodley and Kempe would work together once more on All Saints, Danehill, East Sussex.

Altar Frontal (Antependium) designed by Charles Eamer Kempe.

Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART

Altar Frontal (Antependium) designed by Charles Eamer Kempe.

Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART

In 1866, he opened a studio of his own in London, supplying and creating Stained-Glass and Furnishings and Vestments. The firm prospered and by 1899 he had over fifty employees. As a trademark, the firm used a Golden Garb, or Wheat-Sheaf, taken from Kempe's own Coat-of-Arms. The Mid-Victorian period were important years in the history of the design of English Churches and Kempe’s influence is found in numerous examples, many in his home County of Sussex, which has 116 examples of his work.

The works at Saint Mark’s, Staplefield, near Horsham, West Sussex, dating from 1869, are regarded as especially important, representing the earliest of three known examples of Kempe’s Wall Painting. They contain key elements of Kempe’s figurative work. The Angels, holding the scroll, are magnificently apparelled and the borders of their cloaks are embellished with pearls, each individually highlighted, although they don’t contain a design of peacock feathers, a well-used embellishment in later works.

Interior of Church of Saint Paul, Mirfield, West Yorkshire, England.

A particularly fine window 

on the South Wall, 

by Charles Eamer Kempe.

Photo: 8 April 2014.

Source: Own work.

Author: Linda Spashett Storye book.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Rosalie Glynn Grylls, Lady Mander, whose home, Wightwick Manor, near Wolverhampton, contains many pieces of Kempe's Stained-Glass, wrote in 1973: "Kempe's work has a unique charm; its colours shine out from jewels, that cluster on the Mitres or the Crowns that his figures wear, and from their peacocks' feathers, while Angels, playing their instruments, are drawn with tender delicacy and scattered above the main windows informally, but making a pattern of precision. Above all, the prevailing yellow-wash is literally translucent, for it lets through the rays of the full-, or the setting-, sun . . ."

On Kempe’s death, in 1907, the firm passed to his relative, Walter Earnest Tower (1873–1955), who re-named the firm C. E Kempe and Co., who, thenceforth, used a Black Tower above the Golden Garb. A lack of orders, caused by the Great Depression, ended the firm's life in 1934.

Altar Frontal (Antependium) designed by Charles Eamer Kempe.

Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART

Altar Frontal (Antependium) designed by Charles Eamer Kempe.

Illustration: MEDIEVAL CHURCH ART

Kempe was a rather shy person, who never married. He continued to live in Sussex most of his life and, in 1875, he bought and renovated an Elizabethan House at Lindfield, near Haywards Heath, in West Sussex. Kempe would entertain his clients and professional colleagues from his home, enjoying the role of a Country Squire.

Kempe died in 1907 and is buried in the Churchyard at Saint Wulfran's Church, Ovingdean. Unfortunately, most of Kempe's records were disposed of after the firm shut in 1934.

The East Window of Saint Mary The Virgin Church,

Baldock, Hertfordshire, England, showing Christ and The Four Evangelists.

The window was designed by Charles Eamer Kempe.

Photo: 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author. Jack1956.

(Wikipedia)

The following Text is taken from THE KEMPE SOCIETY

In 1869, dissatisfied with the quality of the work produced for him, Kempe started his own workshop at Millbrook Place, London, with the professional co-operation of Fred Leach. The idea for a design would first be drawn by Kempe, and then the full size cartoon would be produced in his studios by his chief draughtsman and a team of artists, who added the detailed decoration. The cartoon was then taken to his Millbrook works for glass cutting, painting and leading. The glass was always carefully selected, supplied by either Messrs Miller Beal and Hilder Ltd., or James Hetley and Co., at 35 Soho Square, London, who reserved a room for Kempe’s glass.

In 1888, the studios and offices moved to 28 Nottingham Place, in Central London., and by the end of the Century he employed over fifty people.

Detail of Singing Angels, by Charles Eamer Kempe, dated 1870,

from the Vestry of Saint John The Divine. Frankby. Cheshire.

Image: STAINED GLASS

Such success and demand was bound to lead to repetition, and some of Kempe’s later work involved adapting earlier designs. But, unlike other large Victorian studios, he never allowed the quality or individuality of his work to deteriorate. The senses are always thrilled by the spirituality of his Stained-Glass.

His studios, in spite of their heavy commitment to Stained-Glass, also produced designs for Church Furniture, Reredos, Screens, Altars, and Panelling. Kempe continued to design splendid Vestments and Altar Frontals (Antependiums) that were embroidered exquisitely by the Anglican Order of Clewer Sisters.

The decade from 1895-1905 was the busiest the Kempe Glass-Works were to experience and it was to culminate in a commission to produce a window of Saint George, for Buckingham Palace. This window, the victim of wartime bombing, can now be seen in the Ely Stained-Glass Museum in Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire, England.

Stained-Glass Window from the 1870s.

Artist: Charles Eamer Kempe.

Many historians believe Kempe was one of the 

most artistic,

accomplished, 

and technically proficient artisans of the era.

Photo by G. Franklin 2002.

Image: ALLPLANET.COM

Kempe kept up his business interests with great energy, busily visiting sites ("such motor journeys !" he writes in 1905); making sketches for designs and watching the effects in the Glass-Works. But for some years before Kempe’s death, John Lisle had become the ghost designer for the firm and Kempe, who still enjoyed initiating a project and making suggestions, came to rely more and more on his junior’s collaboration, eventually handing responsibility for designs to him.

From 1895, the studios used the Wheatsheaf, taken from Kempe’s Family Coat-of-Arms, to sign their work. This simplified the complete Arms of "Gules three garbs within a bordure engrailed", which had been used sparingly.

Saint Robert Bellarmine. Bishop. Confessor. Doctor Of The Church. Feast Day 13 May.

Text is taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless otherwise stated.

Saint Robert Bellarmine.
Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of The Church.
Feast Day 13 May.

Double.

White Vestments.

Saint Robert Bellarmine.

Jesuit and Doctor of The Church (4 October 1542 - 17 September 1621).

Beatified 13 May 1923. Canonised 29 June 1930 by Pope Pius XI.

Date: 16th-Century.

Source: istitutoaveta.it

Author: Anonymous.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Born at Montepulciano, Italy, died in Rome. Proclaimed Doctor of The Church on 15 August 1931.

Successively, Professor of Theology and Preacher at Louvain (1569 - 1576), Director of the Course of Controversy in Rome, where Saint Aloysius Gonzaga was his Penitent, Provincial of The Jesuits at Naples, sent by Pope Sixtus V on a Diplomatic Mission to France, Bellarmine was raised to the Cardinalate in spite of his unwillingness in 1599.

Pope Clement VIII alleged as motive for this promotion that his (Editor: Bellarmine's) equal in learning was not at that time to be found in The Church.

Saint Robert Bellarmine Church,

Burbank, California, United States of America.

Photo: April 2008.

Source: Self-Made: Transferred from en.wikipedia

Author: Cbl62.

Attribution: Cbl62 at en.wikipedia

(Wikimedia Commons)

Apart from the three years he spent in Capua as its Archbishop, he passed his life in Rome, where he rendered signal services to Pope Clement VIII, Pope Paul V, and Pope Gregory XV.

By his controversial books, he dealt formidable blows to Protestantism, while, by his Catechism, translated into forty languages, he spread the knowledge of Christian Doctrine in all Countries of the World.

As a Religious, he shone by his Angelic purity, humility, and obedience, and, as Bishop, he was a model of watchful care and Charity to the Poor.

Towards the end of his life, he obtained leave of the Pope to retire to the Noviciate of Saint Andrew, the cradle of his Religious Life, where he prepared for a happy and holy death.

Mass: In médio, from The Common of Doctors.

Body, Blood, Soul And Divinity Of Jesus Christ. Son Of God. Second Person Of The Blessed Trinity.

Gloomy Don McLean Reveals Meaning Of ‘American Pie’ — Sells Lyrics For $1.2 Million.

This Article is from THE WASHINGTON POST

The Washington Post

By Justin Wm. Moyer 8 April. 

"American Pie"

by

Don McLean.

Available on YouTube at

https://youtu.be/uAsV5-Hv-7U

Songwriter Don McLean's manuscript for the classic song “American Pie”

sold at an auction for $1.2 million . (Reuters)

Left: Don McLean in 1972.

Right: McLean in Waterford, N.Y., in 1968.

(Photos by AP)

The music died because Buddy Holly merely wanted what every touring musician wants: to do laundry.

Shoved into unheated buses on a “Winter Dance Party” tour in 1959, Holly — tired of rattling through the Midwest with dirty clothes — chartered a plane on Feb. 3 to fly from Clear Lake, Iowa, to Fargo, N.D., where he hoped he could make an appointment with a washing machine. Joining him on the plane were Ritchie Valens and, after future country star Waylon Jennings gave up his seat, J.P. Richardson, a.k.a. “the Big Bopper.”

Taking off in bad weather with a pilot not certified to do so, the plane crashed, killing everyone aboard. The toll was incalculable: The singers of “Peggy Sue” and “Come On Let’s Go” and “Donna” and “La Bamba” were dead. Holly was just 22; incredibly, Valens was just 17. Rock and roll would never be the same.

Thirteen years later, Don McLean wrote a song about this tragedy: “American Pie,” an 8½-minute epic with an iconic lyric about “the day the music died.” Now, the original 16-page working manuscript of the lyrics has been sold at auction for $1.2 million.

“I thought it would be interesting as I reach age 70 to release this work product on the song American Pie so that anyone who might be interested will learn that this song was not a parlor game,” McLean said in a Christie’s catalogue ahead of the sale. “It was an indescribable photograph of America that I tried to capture in words and music.”

That photograph was always a little bit blurry. At more than 800 words, the meaning of “American Pie” proved elusive even for a generation used to parsing inscrutable Bob Dylan and Beatles lyrics. McLean has said the song was inspired by the 1959 plane crash, but has been cagey about other details.

“People ask me if I left the lyrics open to ambiguity,” McLean said in an early interview, as the Guardian reported. “Of course I did. I wanted to make a whole series of complex statements. The lyrics had to do with the state of society at the time.”

But what state was that? It seemed like the song’s cast of characters — which include a jester, a king, a queen, good ol’ boys drinking whiskey and rye as well as “Miss American Pie” herself — were meant to represent real people. The song includes references to Karl Marx; Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (or, more likely, John Lennon); the Fab Four; the Byrds; James Dean; Charles Manson; the Rolling Stones; the “widowed bride,” Jackie Kennedy; and the Vietnam War.

Left: Don McLean in 1972.

Right: McLean in Waterford, N.Y., in 1968.

(Photos by AP)

What does it all mean? Just what a song about the day the music died seems like it might be about: the end of the American Dream.

“Basically in ‘American Pie,’ things are heading in the wrong direction,” he told Christie’s, as the Newcastle Herald reported. “It is becoming less idyllic. I don’t know whether you consider that wrong or right but it is a morality song in a sense.”

As ideals of the 1960s turned into the cynicism of the 1970s, this feeling was widespread enough to send the song to No. 1 in 1972.

“American Pie is the accessible farewell to the Fifties and Sixties,” Guardian music critic Alexis Petridis wrote in the catalogue. “Bob Dylan talked to the counterculture in dense, cryptic, apocalyptic terms. But Don McLean says similar ominous things in a pop language that a mainstream listener could understand. The chorus is so good that it lets you wallow in the confusion and wistfulness of that moment, and be comforted at the same time. It’s bubblegum Dylan, really.” (Perhaps of note: Dylan’s manuscript of “Like a Rolling Stone” sold for $2 million in June, besting McLean’s measly $1.2 million.)

Forty-four years after “American Pie’s” release, McLean, 69, wasn’t much more positive about the state of the world than he was a generation ago.

“I was around in 1970 and now I am around in 2015,” McLean said, as People Magazine reported. “There is no poetry and very little romance in anything anymore, so it is really like the last phase of ‘American Pie.’ ”

Nor was there romance in McLean’s decision to sell the manuscript. He did it for the dough.

“I’m going to be 70 this year,” he told Rolling Stone. “I have two children and a wife, and none of them seem to have the mercantile instinct. I want to get the best deal that I can for them. It’s time.”

Ahead of the Christie’s auction, McLean did offer some advice to all the budding Don McLeans out here.

“I would say to young songwriters who are starting out to immerse yourself in beautiful music and beautiful lyrics and think about every word you say in a song,” he said.

Here are the words of “American Pie” as transcribed by azlyrics.com, the savior of cover bands everywhere. (Note: AZ creatively transcribes what many hear as “whiskey and rye” as “whiskey in Rye.”)

A long, long time ago

I can still remember how that music used to make me smile

And I knew if I had my chance

That I could make those people dance

And maybe they’d be happy for a while

But February made me shiver

With every paper I’d deliver

Bad news on the doorstep

I couldn’t take one more step

I can’t remember if I cried

When I read about his widowed bride

But something touched me deep inside

The day the music died

So bye-bye, Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry

And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey in Rye

Singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die

This’ll be the day that I die”

Did you write the book of love

And do you have faith in God above

If the Bible tells you so?

Now do you believe in rock and roll?

Can music save your mortal soul?

And can you teach me how to dance real slow?

Well, I know that you’re in love with him

‘Cause I saw you dancin’ in the gym

You both kicked off your shoes

Man, I dig those rhythm and blues

I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buck

With a pink carnation and a pickup truck

But I knew I was out of luck

The day the music died

I started singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry

Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey in Rye

Singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die

This’ll be the day that I die”

Now for 10 years we’ve been on our own

And moss grows fat on a rollin’ stone

But that’s not how it used to be

When the jester sang for the king and queen

In a coat he borrowed from James Dean

And a voice that came from you and me

Oh, and while the king was looking down

The jester stole his thorny crown

The courtroom was adjourned

No verdict was returned

And while Lenin read a book on Marx

The quartet practiced in the park

And we sang dirges in the dark

The day the music died

We were singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry

Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey in Rye

Singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die

This’ll be the day that I die”

Helter skelter in a summer swelter

The birds flew off with a fallout shelter

Eight miles high and falling fast

It landed foul on the grass

The players tried for a forward pass

With the jester on the sidelines in a cast

Now the halftime air was sweet perfume

While the sergeants played a marching tune

We all got up to dance

Oh, but we never got the chance

‘Cause the players tried to take the field

The marching band refused to yield

Do you recall what was revealed

The day the music died ?

We started singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry

Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey in Rye

And singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die

This’ll be the day that I die”

Oh, and there we were all in one place

A generation lost in space

With no time left to start again

So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick

Jack Flash sat on a candlestick

‘Cause fire is the devil’s only friend

Oh, and as I watched him on the stage

My hands were clenched in fists of rage

No angel born in Hell

Could break that Satan’s spell

And as the flames climbed high into the night

To light the sacrificial rite

I saw Satan laughing with delight

The day the music died

He was singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry

Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey in Rye

And singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die

This’ll be the day that I die”

I met a girl who sang the blues

And I asked her for some happy news

But she just smiled and turned away

I went down to the sacred store

Where I’d heard the music years before

But the man there said the music wouldn't play

And in the streets, the children screamed

The lovers cried and the poets dreamed

But not a word was spoken

The church bells all were broken

And the three men I admire most

The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost

They caught the last train for the coast

The day the music died

And they were singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry

And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey in Rye

Singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die

This’ll be the day that I die”

They were singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry

Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey in Rye

And singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die”

Justin Moyer is a reporter for The Washington Post's Morning Mix.

Follow him on Twitter: @justinwmmoyer.