mittee was appointed for that purpose by
the King, and the Hon. Angelo Pavis, a prominent member of the Italian
Parliament, was elected chairman of the committee. The Italian
ambassador to the United States, the Baron Edmondo Mayor des Planches,
who advised the Italian Government to let Italy appear officially at the
exposition, was appointed honorary commissioner-general, and Hon.
Giovanni Branchi, the Italian consul-general in New York, was appointed
commissioner-general. Adolfo Appoloni, one of the members of the royal
commission in Rome, was appointed special commissioner for fine arts,
and Mr. Branchi chose as members of the commission Guido Pantaleoni,
electrical engineer, of St. Louis, and Chev. Vittorio Zeggio, who was
special delegate from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, to promote the
participation of Italy to the World's Fair. Besides these members of the
commission four secretaries and several assistants helped the commission
in the work of arranging and distributing the different exhibits.

The appropriation of the Italian Government for the exposition was
650,000 lire ($130,000), but this appropriation was raised in progress
to 800,000 lire ($170,000). A small fee of $4 per square meter was
assessed to the exhibitors, but the artists and the schools had nothing
to pay. No private contributions were accepted by the Government. The
Government paid the cost of transporting and maintenance of exhibits,
which amounted to about $30,000. The number of exhibitors was about
1,100. Many more firms would have sent their products to this exposition
had they had time to arrange a fitting display. For this reason the
Italian display was not a full demonstration of what Italy produces.

The largest Italian displays were in the Fine Arts, the Manufactures,
and the Agriculture buildings. The paintings and the sculptures
exhibited were sufficient to give an idea of the modern art in Italy.
They were all quite recent, with the exception of some pictures
exhibited as loan, which were painted before the Chicago Exposition. The
largest and most important art societies of Italy took a great interest
in the exposition, but lack of time prevented the artists from preparing
special works to be exhibited. The spirit of modern Italian art was
individual, all working for the development of a national art. Among the
sculptures were Monteverde, Fontana, Origo, and Romanelli. Among the
painters, Previati, Rizzi, Mancini, Gioli, Morbel