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if you receive 75 per cent of what you asked to borrow, you will be just about right," people with experience in collecting told me. I was surprised, then, by what actually happened. Where I might ask for a few choice pieces of, say, glass or ceramics, the owners would urge me to take more. Again and again, in ateliers and factories, this took place. At first, I assumed it was because the artists and craftsmen simply wanted to be well represented at the Exposition. But this would not explain what appeared to be Mussolini's exceptional generosity. He authorized the loan of a large number of great and famous paintings, including the Sistine Madonna. He ordered them to be shipped to San Francisco on an Italian liner, carefully shepherded by Italian curators. Then, when I returned to San Francisco and the installations began, I found an emparassment of riches. There were instances when four or even five crates of precious objects had been sent from