today’s birthday: Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598)

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598)

Bernini, a 17th-century artist and architect, was a leading figure in the development of the Italian baroque style. Among his best-known sculptures, which often combine white and colored marble with bronze and stucco, are the Cornaro Chapel‘s Ecstasy of St. Teresa and the David displayed at the Borghese Gallery. Bernini also designed the magnificent baldachin, or canopy, inside St. Peter’s Basilica. Bernini’s designs for the façade of what famed museum were rejected? More… Discuss

Opus Dei

Opus Dei is a Roman Catholic lay order founded in 1928 in Spain, where it gained support from the government of Francisco Franco after the Spanish Civil War. Roughly one-third of its more than 85,000 members are celibate and live communally. Opus Dei seeks to promote traditional Catholic values and teachings and opposes liberalism and immorality. It also emphasizes preaching to government officials, intellectuals, and business executives. Why has Opus Dei been controversial among some Catholics? More… Discuss

Today’s Birthday: FRANCISCO FRANCO (1892)

Francisco Franco (1892)

A career army officer and skillful leader, Franco was appointed the Spanish army‘s chief of staff in 1935. The next year, he joined the military uprising that precipitated the Spanish Civil War and became the leader of the Nationalist forces bent on overthrowing the republican government. Over the next few years, a bloody war was waged. The Nationalists emerged victorious, and from 1939 until his death in 1975, Franco served as virtual dictator of Spain. Whose aid helped secure Franco’s victory? More…Discuss

 

THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

From 1936 to 1939, the Spanish Civil War raged as General Francisco Franco‘s Nationalists overthrew the republican government. Franco’s forces were aided by Germany and Italy, who used Spain as a test site for blitzkrieg warfare on the eve of World War II. Fierce and bloody skirmishes characterized the war of attrition, which claimed 500,000 lives. The war’s end brought a period of dictatorship that lasted until the mid-1970s. Deemed the first “media war,” it was covered by which famous authors? More…Discuss