St. Peter's Crypt, the only book on the subject, and is a mine of information.
I have left to the end Pistolesi's magnificent work, II Vaticano, published eighty years ago in eight huge folios, at the expense, I believe, of a former Earl of Shrewsbury. Half my illustrations are reproductions of the hundreds of superb plans and plates in this book. Pistolesi is what Americans would call the bed-rock, upon which many of the later books about the Vatican are founded, and its value is much enhanced by the fact that, unlike most large Italian works, it is well indexed.
I hope that I have not omitted any of the works which have been valuable to me in the prolonged studies which preceded the writing of my book. If I have, I tender my most sincere apologies to their authors and publishers. I must conclude with a word of thanks to Miss Heath Wilson, of the English Library in the Piazza di Spagna at Rome, a valued friend, who has given me much help by procuring for me various materials not procurable in England.
- THE AVENUE HOUSE,
- RICHMOND, SURREY.
