1884: Oscar Wilde marries Constance Lloyd
1885: Arthur Conan Doyle marries Louisa ‘Touie’ Hawkins
1887: Publication of A Study in Scarlet, the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes
1889: The first meeting of Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle
1889: Stories by Axel Munthe and Arthur Conan Doyle appear in Blackwood’s Magazine
1890: Publication of The Sign of Four, the second appearance of Sherlock Holmes
1890: Publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray
1890: Axel Munthe opens his medical practice in Rome
1892: The first performance of Lady Windermere’s Fan in London
1892: Publication of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
1893: The ‘death’ of Sherlock Holmes in ‘The Final Problem’
1895: The first performance of The Importance of Being Earnest and the arrest and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde
1897: Oscar Wilde, released from prison, visits Axel Munthe in Capri
1897: Arthur Conan Doyle meets Jean Leckie, who becomes his second wife following the death of ‘Touie’ ‘from tuberculosis in 1906
1900: Death of Oscar Wilde, aged forty-six
1901: The return of Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles
1903: Death of Pope Leo XIII, aged ninety-three
1908: James Rennell Rodd appointed British ambassador to Rome
1924: Publication of Memories and Adventures by Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring the first account of his friendship with Oscar Wilde
1929: Publication of The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe
1930: Death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, aged seventy-one
1933: Sir James Rennell Rodd GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC, elevated to the House of Lords as 1st Baron Rennell
1938: Publication of Two Englishwomen in Rome 1871-1900 by Matilda Lucas, featuring incidents touched on in Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders
1941: Death of Baron Rennell, aged eighty-two
1949: Death of Axel Munthe, aged ninety-one
2000: The beatification of Pope Pius IX
2010: Gyles Brandreth unveils the plaque commemorating the first meeting of Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle at the Langham Hotel, London
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[2] ‘The Pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is not mere man, but as it were God, and the vicar of God.’
[3] ‘Hence the Pope is crowned with a triple crown, as king of heaven and of earth and of the lower regions.’
[4] ‘He who falls in water does not drown, but he who falls badly will.’