After receiving official permission on September 13, 1969 “ to do research in the nunciature's archives,” I was allowed to spend about forty days during the months of May and June, 1970, in the rich collection of materials in this nunciature, situated in the Lagoinha district of Santa Teresa in Rio de Janeiro. It was a tantalizing situation for me as a historian, since the time limit and the prohibition against microfilming enabled me only to glance at much of the documentation, without being able to copy it or even to take copious notes. Perhaps as a result of my interest in these papers, it has been determined by the papal Secretary of State to send all these nunciature documents up to the reign of Pius XII to the Vatican Archive before the end of 1970. There, I was assured, all facilities would be given to scholars to work in this material. The collection when I saw it was intact, containing original materials from 1808 to the present, with apparently hardly a document missing, except for a few letters on the Religious Question of 1873-76, sent to Rome some time after these dates. Apparently very little else of the original papers had been forwarded to Rome during all those years, although copious reports in Italian were sent, of course, to Rome.