Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1897 — How Donizetti’s Skull Was Stolen. [ARTICLE]

How Donizetti’s Skull Was Stolen.

A French review says that the skull of Donizetti 1* still carefully preserved la the library at Bergamo, the town where the composer was bom, lived, sad died. For several years before his death Donizetti bad shown signs of Insanity, and just before the funeral took place an autopsy was made by the attending physician*. It demonstrated the existence of grave lesions to the musician's brain. The organ weighed 1,584 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 of 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 to 1348. The Doctor kept the skull all his Ufa, naturally saying very little about It After his death a nephew had It made into a papor weight In 1874 th* municipality of Bergamo, learning of these facta, Instltuted an inquiry that established their truth, and finally managed to get possession of th* rrilA