HISTORICAIv RESEARCH — JAMESON. I99 



At Rome the several historical institutes were inspected which the various 

 nations have established since the opening of the Vatican Archives by the 

 late Pope, and which bear some such relation to those archives as that which 

 this department aims to sustain toward the archives in Washington. At the 

 E)cole Frangjaise, the Prussian, Austrian, and Dutch institutes, and that of the 

 Gorres Gesellschaft, respectively, much valuable information was obtained 

 from Mgr. L. Duchesne, Prof. Paul Kehr and Dr. Arnold O. Meyer, Dr. 

 Heinrich Pogatscher, Abbe Gijsbert Brom, and Mgr. Stephan Ehses. At 

 Quaracchi the historical establishment of the Franciscans, the College of St. 

 Bonaventure, was visited. At Munich there was profitable conversation with 

 Prof. K. Th. von Heigel, secretary of the historical commission connected 

 with the Bavarian Academy ; at Leiden and the Hague with Prof. P. J. Blok, 

 Dr. T. F. van Riemsdijk, archivist of the Kingdom, and Dr. H. T. Colen- 

 brander, members of the Commission of Advice on National Historical Pub- 

 lications ; at Ghent and Louvain with Dr. F. Vanderhaeghen, librarian of the 

 University of Ghent, and with Profs. Paul Fredericq and Henri Pirenne and 

 Abbe A. Cauchie, members of the Royal Historical Commission; at Paris, 

 London, and Oxford with various gentlemen connected with similar commis- 

 sions or with the national archives, especial kindness being received from 

 Prof. Ch.-V. Langlois, of the University of Paris, and Mr. Hubert Hall, of 

 the Public Record Office. No one of these various institutions occupies a 

 place precisely similar to that of this Department, but each has functions so 

 largely similar, on one side or another, that inquiry and comparison could not 

 fail to be highly interesting and instructive. 



A second object of the mission was to do what could be done, by inquiries 

 and tentative and unofficial approaches, to pave the w^ay for those future 

 archive-searches the necessity for which has been exposed in a previous para- 

 graph. This object received especial attention at Rome, the interest and 

 complexity of the task to be pursued there being, as already explained, excep- 

 tionally great. Besides the suggestions received from some of the scholars 

 named above, I could not fail to mention with gratitude the aid and infor- 

 mation graciously imparted by Cardinal Merry del Val, Secretary of State; 

 Cardinal Gotti, prefect of the Congregation of the Propaganda; Father 

 Ehrle, prefect of the Vatican Library; Mgr. Wenzel, subarchivist of the 

 Vatican archives ; Father Leonard Neukirchen, definitor-general of the Fran- 

 ciscans ; Prof. Umberto Benigni, of the Propaganda ; Father Thomas Hughes, 

 S. J.; Abbe Pierre Richard, Mr. W. H. Bliss, English record agent, and 

 Father Leonard Lemmens, of Quaracchi. I feel confident that, when the 

 proper time arrives, unusual facilities will be afforded for whatever researches 

 we may undertake. Preparations toward future archive-searches elsewhere 

 in Italy, and at the Hague, Paris, and London, were a simpler and easier 

 matter. 



