A new little stone in the mosaic of Liszt’s life – or, better – in the complex essence of his sentiment of pity.
The count Angelo de Gubernatis – a philanthropist, a man of letters, an expert in Indian studies – asked several persons (eminent in different fields) to write “something” in remembrance of the victims of the terrible earthquake in Casamicciola, a little village on the island of Ischia, near Naples (1883).
The writings of politicians, poets, artists and nobles were collected in an Album, which was to be sold to raise money for the victims. Princess Wittgenstein contributed with a quotation from Dante’s Divina Commedia, but Liszt wrote for this occasion a short but memorable aphorism, reproduced here at the end of the article.