Fine Blessing signed (born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, 1857-1939, Pope from 1922 and Sovereign of Vatican City from 1929)

with a fine round photo by G. Felicif, Roma, at the head showing him seated on his throne giving a blessing, underneath the text is illuminated with gold and red, the blessing is for Joseph Kinsley and his family, there is a faint impression of the papal seal, the photo 6½ inches across and the document 14" x 11", Rome, no date, circa Pius XI will be remembered as the pope who reigned between the two great wars of the 20th century. The onetime librarian and mountain climber, he reorganized the Vatican archives. Pius XI fought the two ascendant ideologies of communism and fascism. His success in fighting them was limited and there is much controversy over the concordats he entered with European regimes to improve the situation of the Catholic Church. At the outset, it was clear that he found communism to be the greater of the two evils but in his later years, there is no doubt that he was repelled by the momentum of Nazi Germany, not only in its opposition to the Catholic Church but also in the ferocity of its attacks on the Jewish people.