Manzù completed his first drawing of a Cardinal in 1934 and in the 1940s began a series of sculptures on the subject. This became the dominant theme of his Post-War work. "When asked, the artist always stresses that the cardinals did not interest him as a typically religious theme but represented for him more the character of still-life..., so that no deeper significance should be attached to them than to a plate of apples, for example. He even likes to add that he might just as easily have represented matadors. There were, however, no bullfights in Bergamo whereas the boy often met church dignitaries. Their visual impression became an inspiration for him, a problem of artistic creation which, so to speak, pursued him for years. For a long time the mitred priests enveloped in canonicals had ceased to be connected with his personal religious beliefs; his youthful memories were only concerned with the picturesque garments, curious vestige of a splendor-loving past. Now Manzù proved with his statues that this clothing was not only 'picturesque' but also eminently 'statuesque'. (J. Rewald, , p. 59.)