Overview and works by Alfonsus de Liguori:
Alphonsus was proficient in the arts--his parents having had him being trained by various masters of the arts--being a musician, painter, poet and author at the same time. He put all his artistic and literary creativity at the service of the Christian mission and he asked the same of those who joined his Congregation. His biography says that, in his later days, he liked to go to the local theater, which at the time had a very bad reputation; after being ordained, each time he attended the recitals Alphonsus simply took his optic glasses off and sat in the last row, listening to the music and not paying attention to anything else.

Alphonsus wrote 111 works on spirituality and theology. The 21,500 editions and the translations into 72 languages that his works have undergone attest to the fact that he is one of the most widely read Catholic authors. Among his best known works are: "The Great Means of Prayer," "The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ," and "The Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament." Prayer, love, his relationship with Christ and his first-hand experience of the pastoral needs of the faithful made Alphonsus one of the great masters of the interior life.

His best known musical work is his Christmas hymn "Quanno Nascetti Ninno," later translated into Italian by Blessed Pius IX as the well known carol "Tu scendi dalle stelle" ("From starry skies Thou comest").


[edit] Mariology
In the field of mariology, Alphonsus Liguori wrote "The Glories of Mary," "Marian Devotion," "Prayers to the Divine Mother," "Spiritual Songs," "Visitations to the Blessed Sacrament and to the Virgin Mary," "The True Spouse of Jesus Christ," and other writings. He had a great influence upon Mariology during the Age of Enlightenment. His often flaming Marian enthusiasm contrasted with the cold rationalism of the Enlightenment. It is mainly pastoral in nature. His Mariology rediscovers, integrates and defends the Mariology of Saint Augustine and Saint Ambrose and other fathers and represents an intellectual defence of Mariology in the eighteenth century.