If someone had asked Royal College of Art rector Christopher Frayling if he wanted a private audience with Pope John Paul II, following his invitation to an international university conference in Rome last week with 5999 others, he would probably have muttered something about popes being catholic. But ‘Il magnifico Rettore di Londra’, as he was billed, was, indeed, plucked from obscurity to greet His Holiness.
Responding to JP’s query about plans for the RCA, Frayling said, ‘Our aim is to bring enchantment into the arts’. ‘Is good’ was the reply.
Il Rettore modestly puts down the honour to his being the only UK and art and design delegate, or the Pope practising his English vowels prior to the Queen’s visit, but we know better.
