Letter from SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD to GEORGE PERKINS MARSH, dated July 17, 1876.
Primary tabs
Dear Mr Marsh
It is quite true, what Mr. Hoepli promises; that is, that any packages addressed to the Smithsonian Institution or to other institutions in the United States, may be sent to his care & will be forwarded in his boxes. In behalf of the Royal Institute of Milan he attends to our Italian exchanges & is quite satisfactory in this respect. You can at any time, send to him bundles for transmission. The only trouble is that he usually forwards to us only twice in a year, so that packages about which there is any haste, fail to come in season.
Why does not the Italian government respond to our offers to send the complete sets
of Government publications? We have six boxes now ready to ship, as soon as we can
learn whether Italy will reciprocate fully, & when we can be informed of
some
agent in New York to whom we can deliver the boxes, as also the address of the
person in Rome or elsewhere who is to act as the agent of the Government in this
respect & the name of the library or institution in which the books are to
be kept.
I will do all I can in regard to the distribution of Torlonia's report.
We have been at Philadelphia since the first of June, in attendance on the Exhibition. The unparalleled heat of the Summer has, however, broken Mrs Baird down & she is quite ill at present, but I hope she will soon be better.
With love to [Mrs] Marsh, believe me,
Sincerely Yours.Spencer F BairdHon. Geo. P. Marsh.U.S. Minister,Rome,Italy.
References in this letter:
The international exhibition to celebrate the centennial of American independence was held in Philadelphia. Many items displayed in the exhibits were brought back to Washington, significantly increasing Smithsonian holdings.
Hoepli was a bookdealer at the Galleria de Crostoforis in Milan.
Alessandro Torlonia, Prosciugamento del lago Fucino. Florence: 1871.