Why, since his death in 1878, has no study appeared in England
of Pio Nono?

Perhaps because he was a Pope. Yet this seems insufficient
answer since he was also a leading character - at first the leading
character - in that drama so dear to Englishmen, the Italian
Risorgimento. And even as Pope he forced himself upon the
attention of Englishmen in his day by his "Papal Aggression" in
restoring the Catholic Hierarchy to England, by issuing the Sylla-
bus of Errors, by defining Papal Infallibility, by enraging both
Gladstone and Exeter Hall by reigning longer than any Pope had
ever reigned, by recruiting an international army, by losing the
most ancient sovereignty of Europe - the Papal State.

In an important sense Pio Nono was the central figure of the
mid-nineteenth century. But we name epochs after their political
arbiters, we talk of Metternich's Europe, and Bismarck's Europe,
so that the period between the flight of Metternich in 1848 and the
foundation of the German Empire in 1870 becomes Napoleon III's
Europe - or Palmerston's. If, with Shakespeare, we were to choose
for our title the suffering tragic hero, the symbolic central charac-
ter, then the middle of the century would be called the age of Pio
Nono - for the same reasons as Shakespeare called his plays King
Lear or Othello, rather than Goneril or Iago. Those who were
working for change, or for power, assailed the Pope's claims, and
brushed him aside; but they could not prevent the eyes of a world-
wide audience being fastened upon the stage of his misfortunes.
Nor could they stop him from rekindling, in his old age, flames of
fervour that have burnt ever since around the world.

The recent appearance in Europe of two major publications
concerned with Pio Nono is a reminder of our own neglect. One
is R. Aubert's Pontificat de Pie Neuf, ¹ which is a history of the
Catholic Church in this pontificate. The other is the correspondence
of Pio Nono with Victor Emmanuel and Napoleon III, and of
Cardinal Antonelli with the Papal Nuncios, between the years