vilization and humanity as that of the Sovereign Pontiffs? They have
been the watchful guardians of the master-pieces bequeathed to us by
antiquity. They have given these a home in their own palaces to show that
religion adopts and ennobles all that is truly beautiful. It is the
Sovereign Pontiffs who, by opening new avenues for modern art, have
brought it to the point of perfection, embodied in the master-pieces of
Raphael and Michael Angelo. They alone support in Rome that unique
assemblage of all that is beautiful in every order, that splendid
intellectual galaxy in whose light the artists of every land are formed.
Holy Father, the little spot of earth which the revolution has not yet
taken from you is the only place in which the arts find the inspiration
that is for them the breath of life, and the quiet without which that life
cannot expand. The soul of the true artist is filled with unspeakable
apprehension by the possibility of seeing these master-pieces destroyed or
scattered abroad, these treasures plundered, all this wealth annihilated;
and especially by the danger of seeing the ungraceful and meagre forms of
modern utilitarianism usurp the place held by the manners, the habits, the
face of all things in this privileged land of beauty, all consecrated by
the admiration of ages. Alas! Holy Father, what is happening in the rest
of Italy affords but too firm a ground for such apprehensions. The genius
of destruction is abroad there, and proceeds to sweep away pitilessly what
was the glory of ancient Italy. The spoliation and suppression of the
religious orders are one of the most deadly blows ever aimed at the
existence of the fine arts. Saddened by those forebodings, fearful of what
the future may bring forth, the artists resident in Rome come to the feet
of your Holiness to give utterance to their deep conviction that the
splendor, the greatness, the very existence of the fine arts in Europe are
inseparably connected with the maintenance of the beneficent power of the
Sovereign Pontiffs. Were it not that the rival passions which divide
Europe are of themselves fatally blind to consequences, the reign of your
Holiness would suffice to render this truth evident to all. For while
elsewhere national wealth is wasted in frivolous undertakings, or in
preparing instruments of destruction, the modest revenues inherited by
your Holiness are ever employed in continuing gloriously the noble labor
of your predecessors. On the