Liszt, Carolyne, and the Vatican The Story of a Thwarted Marriage

In the past, serious biographers of Franz Liszt have found the matter of the thwarted marriage of Liszt and Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein most puzzling, but no longer! The core of this publication is the sixty or so documents which have lain in the Vatican archives for more than a hundred and twenty years until brought to light by Prof. Walker in 1983 and 1985. These documents allow us to piece together for the first time Carolyne's twelve-year struggle to procure an annulment of her first marriage, a necessary first step to clear the way for her nuptials with Liszt. These documents will be published in English and Latin, with substantial commentary in an introductory essay by Prof. Walker, and will include selected pages and one entire document in facsimile.