PIO XII VISTO DA VICINO Con un diario inedito del 1954

In 1961 Cardinal Domenico Tardini, Secretary of State of John XXIII, reconstructed in his book Pio XII, with a rich array of documents, the figure and work of Pius XII, of whom he had been the closest collaborator, together with Monsignor Giovani Battista Montini. The book, translated into many languages, is now republished in an anstatic edition with a dense introduction that reconstructs its publishing success and the appreciation of scholars. It is followed by a very interesting unpublished diary from 1954, the year of the Pope's long and painful illness, in which Tardini notes the conversations he had during the audiences. As the introduction points out, the effective accounts of the audiences reveal the complex dynamics of the Curia and the limits of Pius XII's late pontificate and his solitary governance of the Church. In these encounters with Pius XII seen up close, Tardini captures the rich human and religious personality of the suffering Pope with psychological finesse.