William Henry Bliss - Work in The Vatican

Work in The Vatican

In 1877 the Public Records Office asked Bliss to go to Rome to do research in the Vatican Archives on its behalf. He accepted the offer and spent most of his time searching the mediæval Papal Registers in order to find all the dealings between the Papacy and Great Britain and Ireland. This job required Bliss to spend nine months of each year in Rome and this became Bliss’ habit until he died at the Via Delphini in 1911. His wife raised the children in England and remained an Anglican.

At first the Papal bureaucrats were suspicious of an Englishmen. He won them over and by 1886 he was the English Tutor to Victor Emmanuel, heir to the Italian crown. He enjoyed cordial relations with the Italian Royal family.

In the Vatican Bliss produced a series called the Calendar of The Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to British Isles Volumes I and II. These were entirely Bliss's work. He edited volumes III, IV, and V with collaborators.

Read more about this topic:  William Henry Bliss

Famous quotes containing the words work in and/or work:

    On a huge hill,
    Cragged, and steep, Truth stands, and he that will
    Reach her, about must, and about must go;
    And what the hill’s suddenness resists, win so;
    Yet strive so, that before age, death’s twilight,
    Thy Soul rest, for none can work in that night.
    To will, implies delay, therefore now do:
    Hard deeds, the body’s pains; hard knowledge too
    The mind’s endeavours reach, and mysteries
    Are like the Sun, dazzling, yet plain to all eyes.
    John Donne (1572–1631)

    So your work and you shall reinforce yourself.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)