Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/704

668 in Greece, with a view to the ultimate recovery of the island of Rhodes. For this purpose attempts were made to raise a loan of £400,000, but without success. Busca changed the locality of the convent from Catania to Ferrara, by permission of Leo XII., dated on the 12th May, 1827, and he died in that city in 1834. lIe was followed successively by Carlo Candida, Filippo di Colloredo, Alessandro Borgia, and Giovanni Battista Cesehi di Santa Croce. This latter chief was appointed in 1872, and in 1879 Pope Leo XIII. raised him to the dignity of Grand-Master, a title which had been in abeyance since the year 1803, and which he still holds. During the rule of Candida the fraternity removed to Rome, where the members still reside.

This branch of the Order at present consists of portions of the Italian and German langues, with a few other scattered fragments. Of the langue of Italy the grand priories of Rome, of Lombardo-Venetia, and of the Two Sicilies still survive of the langue of Germany, only the grand-priory of Bohemia; whilst the other fragments, which are affiliated to the convent under the title of associations, are the Rhenish Westphalian the Silesian, and the British. The latter are, of course, Roman Catholic, and have been professed in Rome.

It will be seen, therefore, that there remain at the present day three distinct fragments which trace their parentage to the Order of St. John—the convent at Rome, with its Grand.Master appointed by the Pope; the Brandenburg branch, which ha been described in Chapter XXI.; and the English langue, the revival of which was described in Chapter XXII. At present these three fragments remain unconnected; but it is to be hoped that in time they may be drawn together, and that no difference of religious opinions will stand in the way of their uniting to carry out the principles embodied in the motto of their Order—Pro utilitate hominum.