The Rake's Progress, with music by Igor Stravinsky and libretto by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman, has its premiere in Venice

Federico Fellini directs La Strada ('The Road'), starring his wife, Giulietta Masina, and Antony Quinn

Sicilian author Giuseppe de Lampedusa completes his novel The Leopard, but does not live to see it published

Six founding nations (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, West Germany) establish the European Economic Community (EEC)

John Cranko's version of Romeo and Juliet, to Prokofiev's score, is premiered by La Scala Ballet in Venice

Angelo Roncalli is elected pope and takes the name John XXIII

Pope John XXIII summons a second Vatican Council

Italian firm director Michelangelo Antonioni makes L'Avventura, with Monica Vitti in the leading role

Italian film director Federico Fellini makes La Dolce Vita, an episodic study of life along the Via Veneto in Rome

Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti makes his operatic debut in Reggio Emilia, as Rodolfo in La Bohème

The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican begins, 94 years after the start of the First Vatican Council under Pius IX

Pope John XXIII dies, only a few month's after the start of the great Vatican council that he has summoned

Italian cardinal Giovanni Montini is elected pope and takes the name Paul VI

Sergio Leone directs A Fistful of Dollars, the first of his three 'spaghetti westerns' starring Clint Eastwood

The Second Vatican Council ends, having made some radical changes in the ritual and attitudes of the Roman Catholic church

Ezra Pound publishes his last collection of cantos, Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX - CXVII

Pope Paul VI issues the encyclical Humanae Vitae, condemning all methods of artificial birth control

Italian composer Luciano Berio completes his Sinfonia for eight voices and orchestra

Italian playwright Dario Fo's black comedy Accidental Death of an Anarchist has its premiere in Milan

Bernardo Bertolucci directs Marlon Brando in the sexually explicit film Last Tango in Paris

Former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro is abducted and assassinated by the terrorist Red Brigades

Italian cardinal Albino Luciani is elected pope and takes the name John Paul I

Pope John Paul I dies, after a pontificate of only 33 days

Polish cardinal Karol Wojtyla is elected pope and takes the name John Paul II

Italian academic Umberto Eco publishes The Name of the Rose, a medieval murder mystery