Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1897 — How Donizetti's Skull Was Stolen. [ARTICLE]

How Donizetti's Skull Was Stolen.

A French review says that the skull of Donizetti la still carefully preserved Ln the library at Bergamo, the town where the composer was born, lived, and died For several years before bls death Donizetti had shown signs of Insanity, and just before the funeral took place an autopsy was made by the aA tending physicians. It demonstrated the existence of grave lesions In the musician’s brain. The organ weighed 1,534 grammes, which is about a ninth above the average. The convolutions that are supposed to govern the Imaginative and musical faculties showed high development After,the operation had been completed, one of the doctors present secretly took possession at the upper part of the cranial vault placed it upon his own head, and, covering It With his hat managed to carry the strange memento away unobserved. This happened In 1848. The Doctor kept the skull all his life, naturally saying very little about It After his death a nephew had It made Into a paper weight In 1874 the municipality of Bergamo, learning Of these facta instituted an inquiry that established their truth, and finally managed to get possession of the rello.