pbs. he is the author or co-author of 16 books, including studies the prairie school in iowa, and monument avenue in richmond. his most recent book was published in 1912 excuse me, 2012. dr. wilson. [applause] dr. wilson: thank you very much, kindle. can you hear me all right? ok. i want to thank kendall and the society for inviting me here. it is a little daunting to be here in this room. and i do want to also acknowledge anything i say tonight is actually built on the shoulders of other scholars who have worked on the different subjects here and so forth and different archives, and particularly to note historic new england, which has substantial archives of the architects who designed this and i will be referring to in a minute. what i am going to try and do in my talk is to put lars and isabel anderson s house and make sure there is an l and an i there, and see how many l s and i s you can see by the end. this is in the context of other great houses of the latter 19t
the andersons officially opened their home for entertaining when 120 years ago. their home was described as a florentine villa in the midst of american independence, with an interior that will be a dream of beauty and good taste. tonight, dr. wilson will investigate the architecture of the anderson house and other extravagant mansion s mdc m newport mentions mansions in d.c. and newport built between the civil war and world war i. he specializes in the architecture, design, and art of the 18th through 20th century, both in america and abroad. dr. wilson has directed the victorian society s 19th-century summer school since 1979 and has served as an advisor and commentator for a number of television programs including america s castles and 10 most influential buildings for the pbs. he is the author or co-author of 16 books, including studies the prairie school in iowa, and monument avenue in richmond. his most recent book edith wharton at home was published in 1912
pius xi and italian dictator benito mussolini who both obtained power in 192. this is about an hour. well, thank you, it is a pleasure to be here. the book was just publish ad few days ago and great to have you here to help milan much it. the, let us begin by setting the scene. some of you are more familiar with this than other the. it s a scene i use in the prologue of the book to help set it up even though the scene comes near the end of the story, the pope s last days. the pope is found in his office. he is ailing, he is elderly, he is infirmed. he begs god to give him a few more days to live. he has something he needs to say and realizes he has very little time left on the earth. for years the pope had been in good health, known as the robust, mountaineer pope as a young priest, climbed many high alpine peeks. he was known as i am peer just, as demanding while scholarly and devout. he insisted on knowing every detail of everything going on in the vatican and making all
gave it the privileged position as there are religion of the land. this was a big occasion the tenth anniversary. all of the bishops were summoned and mussolini s own representatives with a bear. the king s son would either. the world would be watching. it was a speech that the pope saw as his last opportunity to get out a dramatic message. the killy rots a. i don t know how to work this. one button which doesn t seem to do anything. i m just going to show you a couple of images to illustrate. that is what we are trying to do but i don t want to keep you there. this shows you get an idea of the last 10 days of his his life when he looked like it if you go to the next image here you see both as a younger man. at the time they both came to power in 1922 which is the beginning of my story. benito mussolinmussolin i is a 39-year-old, a rabble-rouser. through an extortion he had come to power just a few months after the pub came to power. the dictator came to depend on the pop
and sister whom he had been close to refer to him as napoleon nest. also for the 17 years he was pope he never allowed anyone to sit down at the table when he ate, not even a cardinal. and this by the way was different than some of his predecessors and a continuing tradition that all of his predecessors had obeyed. the pope s vision of the church and of the world was basically a medieval one in which there was only one true roman catholic church and all to his teachings and lines of authority. mussolini as i alluded to before was in many ways his opposite. the anti-cleric, the rabble-rouser, the person who valued violence but also had a notion of a new society. this is certainly not a medieval vision but a new vision. mussolini before he came to power had been a radical socialist. he had been reading social meeting and it was the outbreak of world war i that he had the division with the socialist party or for the war and he wanted italy to enter the war. he founded the fascis