Word: croce
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...spent hundreds of years destroying the grandeur that was Rome and rebuilding it in their own image-only to have it razed in turn by the headstrong men of the Renaissance. The process has never stopped: Art Pundit John Ruskin, making a pilgrimage to the ancient refectory of Santa Croce in the 19th Century, found it had become a bustling carpet factory; to view what remained of its frescoes he was obliged to scale a loom. He saw a whole street of Florence, including the quarters of Donatello and Bronzino, torn down to make room for a cheap-jack...
...Politics? Last week, at the rocky island prison of Procida in the Bay of Naples, a young (33) Franciscan priest, violin-playing Blandino Della Croce, urged the revival of the Mercedarian tradition-with a mid-20th Century twist. Blandino announced that he would substitute himself for one of the 13 Italian war criminals serving terms on Procida...
...towards a national fund wherewith to purchase the Pieta." But so far the best offers were a paltry $90,000 from the Italian government, $400,000 from a Milanese industrialist who hoped to place the Pieta over Michelangelo's tomb in Florence's Church of Santa Croce, but only if he could get the statue taxfree...
...Sigh of Relief. Other Italians understood him better. After the fall of Mussolini, they called Croce back into public life once more in Marshal Badoglio's cabinet. But his appearance was a brief one. With a sigh of relief he left public office for good, and went back home to a library that reached ladder-high ("How can a man live without books?"), and to a special Italian Institute of Historical Studies which he had long wanted to found...
Since then his palazzo has been filled with students. They browse through his library at will, sometimes approach Il Maestro with a question. Such interruptions are welcome. "For so many years under Fascism," Croce says, "not a single student came to me with his problems...