The Pontifical Academy for Latin will promote the knowledge and study of the language from classical times to the present day, said the Vatican.

BBC: Pope Benedict launches Latin academy at Vatican

The treatments depended largely on the belief that we are all compounds of hot, cold, wet and dry bodily humours: this was the basis of medicine from classical times, still used by herbalists and homeopaths.

ECONOMIST: Renaissance advice books

Hard times for classical music are hardly unique to Russia.

ECONOMIST: Classical music in Moscow

Between the forest and the building is a pond on which sits a massive 19th-century Noh stage, the setting for outdoor presentations of classical drama and music several times a year.

FORBES: Ryokans Beyond Calm

The 27-year-old prodigy described by the New York Times as "classical music's hottest young podium property" was born to a poor family in the Venezuelan interior and took up the violin aged 10.

CNN: Venezuela orchestra inspires fight against child poverty

His last chapter, describing how a subway busker reduces a crowd of scurrying New Yorkers to rapt silence with a Bach violin sonata, is an appropriate image for our times, a sign that classical music does indeed still matter.

ECONOMIST: Classical music

Different types of music was played at different times of the day and in an area where classical music was played, young people stopped writing graffiti.

BBC: NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | Classical attempt to curb loitering

He said that one of the happiest times of his life was spent at the American School of Classical Study in Athens in the 1930s.

ECONOMIST: Nathan Pusey

Classical record labels mostly sell album concepts with one or two works with average playing times of around 25 to 30 minutes each.

CNN: Facing down the pirates

It has never been hard to see the shortcomings, and at times the absurdities, of the neo-Hellenic project: the revival of classical glories in the shape of a smallish modern state whose people have by turns been inspired and depressed by their awesome heritage.

ECONOMIST: Athens