Pope Leo XIII Being Seated Bestowing Blessing
About Pope Leo XIII Being Seated Bestowing Blessing
Attendants seat Pope Leo XIII, then eighty-eight, in the Vatican gardens, and he blesses the camera. William Kennedy Dickson shot the three views for the Biograph Company in June and July 1898. The catalog year on this record stays 1896.
Cast & crew
More about Pope Leo XIII Being Seated Bestowing Blessing
The English Wikipedia places the shooting in June and July 1898, after negotiations with Francesco Salesio Della Volpe and Count Pecci, and says the stock was probably Kodak. The catalog year is 1896, the date long attached to a Lumière and Vittorio Calcina credit. Wikidata lists Dickson as cinematographer and Biograph as producer, while the infobox calls Biograph the distributor and also names Rafael Merry del Val.
Themes
Background
Leo XIII was filmed late in his pontificate. The 1896 dating belonged to the older Lumière and Calcina attribution, which the Vatican-archive research replaced.
Making
The Holy See revoked the American company's right to the images because it disapproved of screenings in variety theaters. The footage was then given to the Lumières.
Look
Dickson directed the three garden shots. Wikidata also credits him as cinematographer.
Preservation
A complete copy is identified with the Vatican Film Library. The Wikimedia file is titled Leone XIII.
Notes
- Wikidata lists the duration as 3 minutes. The Wikipedia infobox says 156 seconds.
- The caption on the Wikipedia file identifies a complete copy from the Vatican Film Library.
- Historian Gianluca della Maggiore reconstructed the production history from the Vatican archives, in a study published in 2023.
- Harper's Weekly for November 26, 1898, is among the sources cited on the English page.
Scenes
- Leo XIII, seated among attendants, blesses toward the camera.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Leone XIII.webm)
