200 The Franklin Bi-centennial 



celebrities, among whom Benjamin Franklin, by com- 

 mon consent of the world, holds one of the first places. 



Italy entertaining the greatest admiration at the mar- 

 vellous expansion and wonderful material growth of 

 this glorious republic, one of the most powerful and the 

 most respected members of the community of nations, 

 wishes to join you on this occasion to do honor to him, 

 who illustrated humanity in an astonishing multiplicity 

 of ways, in an infinite number of points. By the in- 

 struction which Franklin gave by his discoveries, by his 

 inventions and by his achievements in public life, he 

 established a claim upon the gratitude of mankind, so 

 broad that history holds few who can be his rivals. The 

 Boston boy, the young printer, and later on the in- 

 ventor, the diplomat and the patriot, are pictures which 

 are familiar to the world. 



Franklin's enterprise and ability and his good sense 

 in all matters, formed the admiration of his fellow men, 

 so that intellectually there are few men who are his 

 peers in all the ages and nations. His inventive genius 

 was commemorated in Italy by the Italian sculptor 

 Monteverde, with the celebrated statue " the genius of 

 Franklin," representing a youth tearing the lightning 

 from the sky and imprisoning it in the earth, thus 

 illustrating Franklin's invention of the lightning rod, 

 consequent on his discovery of the identity of lightning 



