support of Ratti allowed him to remain secretary of state until he retired in 1930. Ratti was elected pope on the conclave's fourteenth ballot on 6 February reportedly receiving 38 votes. The Cardinal Dean Vincenzo Vannutelli, the protopriest Michael Logue and the protodeacon Gaetano Bisleti approached Ratti and Cardinal Vannutelli asked if he accepted his election. Ratti replied: "It is God's will." When pressed for a more explicit answer he replied "As it is God's will, it cannot be refused. Since it is the will of God I must obey." Vannutelli asked the new pope by what name he would be called. Ratti chose "Pius XI", explaining that Pius IX was the pope of his youth and Pius X had appointed him head of the Vatican Library. According to The New York Times, Ratti also told the cardinals he chose the name Pius because "he wanted a Pius to end the Roman question which had begun under a Pius". Shortly afterwards white smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel chimney and at around 12:30 p.m. Gaetano Bisleti, the cardinal-protodeacon appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica and announced the election of Ratti as Pope Pius XI. Blessing As his first act as pope, Pius XI revived the traditional public blessing from the balcony, Urbi et Orbi, ("to the city and to the world"), abandoned by his predecessors since the loss of Rome to the Italian state in 1870. This suggested his openness to a rapprochement with the government of Italy. He had earlier given indication of this to the cardinals at the conclave when he explained his choice of name ("a Pius to end the Roman question which had begun under a Pius") and his informing them that he would give the blessing in public from the central balcony. When some of the more conservative cardinals tried to persuade him not to give the blessing from the external balcony, he listened to their arguments for a while and overruled their objections by saying: "Remember, I am no longer a Cardinal. I am the Supreme Pontiff now". Also, at Pius XI's first appearance, the banner draped on the balcony displayed the arms of Pius IX—the pope who lost Rome to Italy—rather than the arms of his immediate predecessor, Benedict XV. Shortly after the blessing was imparted, Prince Ludovico Chigi Albani della Rovere, the Marshal of the Conclave, issued a statement