RECITAL OF CHAPTER I  
                     
                ACT I   
                     
  Shameless photography is barely ten 
   years old, and pictorial erotica, 
  nearly three thousand, when Mazzini, 
  Saffi, Armellini and Garibaldi found 
 the Republic of Rome and Pope Pius IX 
      flees the Church capital.   
                     
                ACT II   
                     
  A French force of 7000 men with 500 
   cannons, coming to the aid of the 
  papacy, places the city under siege, 
   opposed by all of 2700 red-shirted 
    volunteers wielding 97 pieces of 
        antiquated artillery.   

               ACT III   
                     
   Fierce fighting ensues on the city 
 outskirts but life in Rome carries on 
barely perturbed - on streets, children 
   view string-animated scenes of the 
  resurrection of hand-painted Christ 
  figures through peep holes in roving 
          miniature theatres.  
                     
                ACT IV   
                     
    After five months under assault, 
 Republican Rome falls and the soldiers 
of Napoleon III enter the Holy City, at 
the time inhabitated by 200,000 people, 
 among whom 20,000 women of rather easy 
               virtue.   
                     
                ACT V   
                     
The victors find comfort in the arms of 
  ripe common whores, still flowering, 
  yet complacent models and "priests' 
 wives" (as the "virtuoso" servants and 
handmaidens of the clergy were called).  
                     
                ACT VI   
                     
 This section on War and the Sacred is 
  illustrated by paintings and colour 
   lithographs from the roving "peep" 
  theatres, the forerunners of modern 
           cinematography.   
                     
               ACT VII   
                     
  In the mechanical miniature theatres 
viewers admire sacred transparencies of 
  Christ rising from the dead, scenes 
   destined to be replaced by obscene 
   counterfeit Daguerreotype photos - 
  paper calotypes coloured by hand.   
                     
               ACT VIII   
                     
In this section you will find extremely 
   rare images depicting objects and 
  events of the time. You will see an 
    illustration of a one-of-a-kind 
 specimen of the candle-powered papier 
    mache' "magic lantern" which was 
 already one century old at the time of 
            our "History".  
                     
                ACT IX   
                     
   Here are some of the world's first 
 photographs, taken amidst the ruins of 
 war. And some of those transparencies 
 used by parish preachers to illustrate 
  the countenances of good and evil.