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 word work:
“... possibly there is no needful occupation which is wholly unbeautiful. The beauty of work depends upon the way we meet it—whether we arm ourselves each morning to attack it as an enemy that must be vanquished before night comes, or whether we open our eyes with the sunrise to welcome it as an approaching friend who will keep us delightful company all day, and who will make us feel, at evening, that the day was well worth its fatigues.”
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)