Rizal PreFinals

• Rizal and Viola left Berlin


  May 11, 1887
• Dresden


  Rizal and Viola tarried for sometimes in Dresden
• People Rizal and Viola met in Dresden

  • Dr. Adolph B. Meyer
  • Dr. Jagor
• Rizal was deeply impressed by the painting of Prometheus Bound in the Museum of Art in Dresden
• Rizal and Viola arrived at the railroad station of Leitmeritz


  May 1887
• First meeting with Blumentritt

  Professor Ferdinand Blumentritt was waiting for them at the station
• Blumentritt


  • He carried a pencil sketch of Rizal to identify his friend
  • He helped Rizal and Viola find a room at Hotel Krebs
• Rizal stayed in Leitmeritz


  May 13 to 16, 1887
• Rizal's stay in Leitmeritz

  • They enjoyed the hospitality of the Blumentritt family
  • Blumentritt's wife Rosa was a good cook
  • Blumentritt invited them to a beer garden
  • Rizal met the Burgomaster and some Germans
  • Rizal gave Blumentritt a portrait to commemorate his happy hours at the Blumentritt home
• Prague


  • Rizal and Viola visited the historic city of Prague
  • They carried letters of recommendation from Blumentritt to Dr. Wilkom, professor in University of Prague
  • They visited the tomb of Copernicus, museum of natural history, bacteriological laboratory, and the famous cave where San Juan Nepomuceno was imprisoned
• Rizal and Viola arrived at Vienna


  May 20
• People Rizal and Viola met in Vienna

  • Norfenfals, one of the greatest novelists at the time
  • Masner and Nordman, Austrian scholars and friends of Blumentritt
• Rizal received his lost diamond stickpin, which was found by a maid in Hotel Krebs
• Rizal and Viola left Vienna on a river boat to see the beautiful sights of the Danube River


  May 24
• Rizal's observations on the Danube River

  He observed the river sights, the barges loaded with products, the flowers and plants growing along the river banks, boats with families living on them, and settlements on the riverbanks
• From Lintz to Rheinfall

  • They went to Munich, then proceeded to Nuremburg, one of the oldest cities in Germany
  • They visited Ulm and saw the "largest and tallest cathedral in Germany"
  • At Rheinfall, they saw the "most beautiful waterfall of Europe"
• Rizal and Viola stayed in Switzerland and continued their tour to Basel (Bale), Bern, and Laussane


  June 2 to 3, 1887
• Rizal treated Viola to a blowout on his 26th birthday


  June 19, 1887
• Rizal and Viola parted ways, with Viola deciding to return to Barcelona while Rizal continued his tour to Italy


  June 23, 1887
• Rizal received news from his friends in Madrid about the deplorable conditions of the primitive Igorots who were exhibited in the 1887 Madrid Exposition, with some of the Igorots dying
• Rizal: 'We want an industrial revolution, but not an exhibition of human beings who are compelled to live almost outdoors and died of nostalgia and pneumonia or typhus'
• Rizal's tour in Italy

  • He visited Turin, Milan, Venice and Florence
  • On June 27, 1887, he reached Rome, the Eternal City and also the City of the Caesars
  • On June 29, the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul, Rizal visited the Vatican, the City of the Popes, and the capital of Christendom
  • He was fascinated by the magnificent edifices, particularly of St. Peter's Church, the St. Peter's Square, the papal guards and the atmosphere of religious devotion
  • After a week in Rome, he prepared to return to the Philippines
• All the alluring beauties of foreign countries and all the beautiful memories of his sojourn in alien lands could neither make Rizal forget his fatherland nor turn his back to his own nationality
• Rizal's decision to return home

  • He was warned by his brother Paciano, brother-in-law Silvestre Ubaldo, and friends Chengoy (Jose M. Cecilio) to return home due to the publication of the Noli Me Tangere and the uproar it caused among the friars
  • But he did not heed their warnings and was determined to return to the Philippines for the following reasons: (1) To operate on his mother's eyes; (2) To serve his people who had long been oppressed by the Spanish tyrants; (3) To find out how the Noli and his other writings were affecting the Filipinos and Spaniards in the Philippines; and (4) To inquire why Leonor Rivera remained silent
• In Rome, Rizal wrote to his father, announcing his homecoming


  June 29, 1887
• Rizal wrote that he would embark for the Philippines, so that from 15th to the 30th of August, he would see his family

  July 15, 1887
• The Haiphong arrived in Manila, and Rizal went ashore with a happy heart


  Near midnight of August 5, 1887
• Rizal returned to Calamba, and his family welcomed him affectionately, with plentiful tears of joy


  August 8, 1887
• Rizal's activities in Calamba


  • He established a medical clinic, and patients from Manila and the provinces flocked to Calamba
  • He opened a gymnasium for young folks, where he introduced European sports
• A few weeks after Rizal's arrival, a storm broke over his novel Noli Me Tangere
• Reactions to the Noli Me Tangere

  • Governor General Emilio Terrero found nothing wrong with the novel
  • The report of the faculty members of the University of Santo Tomas stated that the Noli was "heretical, impious, and scandalous in the religion order, and antipatriotic, subversive of public order, injurious to the government of Spain and its function in the Philippine Islands in the political order"
  • Governor General Terrero was dissatisfied with the report of the Dominicans, for he knew that the Dominicans were prejudiced against Rizal
  • Many Filipinos were able to get hold of copies of the Noli which they read at night behind closed doors, despite the government prohibition and the vigilance of the cruel Guardia Civil
  • Governor General Terrero refused to be intimidated by the friars who clamored for harsh measures against people who caught reading the novel and its author
• Attackers of the Noli

  • Fr. Jose Rodriguez, Prior of Guadalupe, published a series of eight pamphlets under the general title "Cuestiones de Sumo Interes" (Questions of Supreme Interest) to blast the Noli and other anti-Spanish writings
  • Many Filipinos were forced to buy them in order not to displease the friars, but they did not believe what their author said with hysterical fervor
  • The Noli was fiercely attacked on the session hall of the Senate of the Spanish Cortes by various senators
• Defenders of the Noli

  • Marcelo H. Del Pilar, Dr. Antonio Ma. Regidor, Graciano Lopez Jaena, Mariano Ponce and other Filipino reformists in foreign lands rushed to uphold the truths of the Noli
  • Rev. Vicente Garcia, a Filipino Catholic priest-scholar, theologian of the Manila Cathedral, and a Tagalog translator of the famous Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis, blasted the arguments of Fr. Rodriguez
• During the days when Noli was the target of heated controversy between the friars (and their minions) and the friends of Rizal, all copies of it were sold out and the price per copy soared to unprecedented level
• While the storm over the Noli was raging in fury, Rizal was not molested in Calamba, due to Governor General Terrero's generosity in allowing Rizal to live peacefully
• Rizal cannot be an "ignorant man", as Fr. Rodriguez alleged, because he was a graduated of Spanish universities and was a recipient of scholastic honors
• Rizal does not attack the Church and Spain, as Fr. Rodriguez claimed, because what Rizal attacked in the Noli were the bad Spanish officials and not Spain, and the bad and corrupt friars and not the Church
• Father Rodriguez said that those who read the Noli commit a mortal sin; since he (Rodriguez) had read the novel, therefore he also commits a mortal sin
• While the storm over the Noli was raging in fury, Rizal was not molested in Calamba. This is due to Governor General Terrero's generosity in assigning a bodyguard to him
• Between Rizal and Lt. Jose Taviel de Andrade


  A beautiful friendship bloomed