Some experts regard Pasquinades as a phenomenon of the past, on account of defining Pasquino as an antagonist of the popes, who lost their political government of Rome in 1870. Most Pasquinades only survived because they were collected as evidence by the Vatican. In 1724, Pope Benedict XIII. decreed the death penalty for writers of Pasquinades. The Vatican predominantly recorded Pasquinades that attacked the church. Such criticism frequently originated from the low clergy, who knew exactly what they were talking about and considered Pasquino as their mouthpiece. But many others, too, publicised their political statements via the talking statues. The thematic scope, even with Pasquino himself, was therefore wide. Instead of defining Paquinades as criticism of purely the church, one might regard the polyphonic voices of the talking statues as criticism of supremacy itself, realising that this fascinating phenomenon, in our present time, is still in existence.