DE SANTI, ANGELO. - Jesuit, b. in Trieste on 12 July 1847, d. in Rome on 28 Jan. 1922. After completing his studies he devoted himself at once to the teaching of music in the seminary of Zara (1887), and in the same year he was summoned by Leo XIII to Rome, where through his collaboration with La Civiltà cattolica and through conferences and studies he was to carry out a vast and effective work for the restoration of sacred music, which then took concrete form in the motu proprio Inter pastoralis officii sollicitudines of Pius X, of 22 Nov. 1903 (Acta S. Sedis, 36 [1903-1904], p. 329 ff.).
In 1910 he founded in Rome the Scuola superiore di musica sacra, opened with a solemn brief in 1911, declared pontifical in 1914 and officially named, in 1931, Pontificio istituto di musica sacra. In the Vatican seminary he created a "Schola cantorum" that was a model for performances of classical music, Palestrinian polyphony and Gregorian chant, the latter according to the editions of the Benedictines of Solesmes. From 1909 until his death he was also president of the Associazione italiana di S. Cecilia, directing until 1914 the Bollettino ceciliana.
His principal works are: Il M° Filippo Capocci e le sue composizioni per organo (Rome 1888); Le litanie lauretane. Studio storico-critico (ibid. 1897); Il «Cursus» nella storia letteraria e nella liturgia (ibid. 1903); L'oragine delle feste natalizie (ibid. 1907); L'orazione delle Quarantore e i tempi di calamità e di guerra (ibid. 1919); Il primo decennio della Pontificia scuola superiore di musica sacra (ibid. 1920); and many other studies in various journals: La civiltà cattolica, of which he was a contributor for about 35 years; La rassegna gregoriana, of which he was the principal animator. His facile vein also dictated to him the novel Ricordo materno (Rome 1896), still sought after and read in our own day.
Bibliography2 works
Luisa Cervelli