Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis Read Online Free Page B

how it feels to have a ceiling about to collapse on your head at any moment.”
    For the duration of the two-and-a-half-hour raid, the pope stood at a window in his private study and watched the bombing through binoculars. Upon learning the extent of the damage, he decided to “carry out his pastoral duties as the Bishop of Rome” and comfort the survivors. Ignoring security concerns, the pope departed Vatican City for the San Lorenzo area in the papal vehicle, a black Mercedes, accompanied only by Monsignor Montini and their driver.
    They arrived to find a bloody and chaotic scene. Many of the bodies, dragged from the rubble, had been lined up, side by side, and covered with newspapers. Desperate cries of “ Santità ” and “ Pace ” (“Holiness” and “Peace”) filled the air. Seeing the yellow-and-white papal pennants attached to the front fenders of the vehicle, throngs of people began to gather around the car. The pope emerged. “His face pale with grief, he stood up on his car to contemplate the damaged Basilica, and then he walked in the street to mingle with his flock. The Pope knelt down in the rubble and prayed for the victims of this and other raids.” More than words were dispensed: the pope and Montini distributed some two million lire * to survivors of the attack.

    This watercolor drawing, printed in the weekly Italian paper La Tribuna Illustrata, shows Pope Pius XII blessing victims of the second Allied bombing attack of Rome on August 13, 1943. Note the blood stains on his cassock. [Biblioteca Comunale Centrale “Palazzo Sormani,” Milan]
    The papal trip to San Lorenzo marked the first time in three years that Pius XII had left the safety and isolation of Vatican City. He returned late that evening with his white cassock stained with dirt and blood. War had engulfed Rome. As the person vested with the responsibility of protecting Vatican City, the pope now had to attend to the safety of its thousands of inhabitants as well as an immense trove of church documents, works of art, and other priceless relics.
    EFFORTS TO REMOVE Mussolini from office began immediately upon his return to Rome late on the evening of July 19. On Thursday, July 22, the Duce met with Italy’s King Vittorio Emanuele III for his routine twice-weekly audience. The seventy-three-year-old monarch, ruler of Italy for almost forty-three years, had already been briefed on the Feltre conference. He knew that Mussolini had obtained neither what his country needed (German troops, aircraft, and equipment) nor what it wanted (an exit from the alliance once proclaimed as the “Pact of Steel”). Twenty years after appointing Mussolini, the king realized his prime minister had to go.
    At 5 p.m. on Saturday, July 24, after more than three years without a meeting of the Grand Council, the Fascist Party’s governing body assembled. The tension heightened after some of the leaders realized that others were concealing pistols and grenades. Mussolini’s lengthy opening statement did little to assuage their concerns or the discordant mood. For nearly ten hours, the men heard impassioned speeches, reasoned presentations, and even sobbing as the chaotic meeting stretched into the early hours of Sunday. At 2:40 a.m., by a margin of nineteen to seven, the Grand Council returned full executive power, including command of Italy’s armed forces, to the king.
    Late that afternoon, Mussolini arrived at Villa Savoia, the royal residence, for a specially arranged audience with Vittorio Emanuele. After listening to the Duce’s brief report on Italy’s military situation and his meeting with the Grand Council, the king asked for Mussolini’s resignation. He informed him that arrangements had already been made for seventy-two-year-old Marshal Pietro Badoglio to become Italy’s next prime minister. “There was a silence in the room, ‘broken only by a phrase which the King had repeated several times during the course of the conversation: “I am