The Busiest Court in the World

New Zealand Tablet, 10 March 1910, Page 393

The Busiest Court in the World

Professor, Rudolph Marshall, the famous painter, who recently did a portrait of the Holy Father in oil, says: ‘ I have been in many royal palaceS in my professional capacity, but never saw such a beehive as the Vatican. The Pope’s palace is a house of work. There seems to be nothing but worship and work going on there. .The Pope, his secretaries, officials, and prelates are for ever busy with business of State or Church. Even while the Holy Father sat for me he was receiving reports of one kind or another. The majority were delivered by tongue, and I never heard more concise language in my life. And the Pope’s answers and decisions were just as brief and to the point as the messages delivered. In the Vatican palace all languages are heard, morning, noon, and night. Aside from the regular ambassadors accredited at the Holy See, delegations from foreign countries are constantly received. The Papal Secretary of State’s business hours are from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.,- and he told me he has the hardest time in the world to secure sufficient leisure for meals. A story was printed some time ago picturing Pius as a great newspaper reader. He told me more than once that the longer he sat on the Papal throne the more he felt the necessity of keeping up with the daily press. Very frequently he has a secretary read the papers to him while promenading in the Papal gardens or during dinner. ‘The Pope has his own ideas about art, and told me exactly how I must paint him before I started the work. When the picture was done he sent for a number of Cardinals and showed them my work. He seemed pleased when they agreed with his own conception of art.’