Archaeology Magazine - March/April 1983 - 58

HEWS

ARCHAEOLOGY

The

Viatican

Collections:

by Constance

For the first time in its history, the
Vatican has sent abroad a major art exhibition, allowing world-famous paintings and sculptures to be seen in the
United States by several million people.
Among the 237 works included in the
exhibit are masterpieces of Renaissance
and Baroque painting and ancient sculpture that have excited the admiration of
artists and antiquarians in Rome for
centuries. The Vatican collections are of
such outstanding quality that it would
have been a simple task to assemble a
group of treasures that would dazzle any
visitor. But The VaticanCollections: The
Papacy and Art, organized by the Musei
Vaticani and The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, is conceived differently. It traces
the history of the relationship between
the papacy and art as it has evolved over
almost 1,700 years.
The illustrated chronicle demonstrates
the popes' activities of collecting and
preserving, and the works of art are presented in the sequence in which they
entered the Vatican collections. Most of
the pieces come from the Vatican Museums, but some are drawn from the
holdings of Saint Peter's Basilica, from
its Grottoes and TVeasury, from the
Apostolic Library, and even from the
papal apartments.
The exhibition opened at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on
February 26, 1983and can be seen there
until June 12. It will then travel to
the Art Institute of Chicago (July 23October 16, 1983) and to the M.H. de
YoungMemorial Museum, the Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco (November
19, 1983-February 19, 1984). A grant of
$3,000,000 from Philip Morris Incorporated has made the national tour possible, and Pan Am has been named the
show's official carrier for its transportation assistance. The Metropolitan
Museum's curators for the exhibition are
Olga Raggio, Chairman of the Department of European Sculpture and DecoraConstance Lowenthal received her PhD.
from The Institute of Fine Arts, New
YorkUniversity, She is a member of the
Department of Public Education at The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, and will
give a series of lectures on "The Papacy
and The History of Art in Rome" during
the exhibition's stay in New York.

The

and

Art

Papacy

Lowenthal

tive Arts, and Margaret E. Frazer,
Curator of Medieval Art. The lavishly
illustrated catalogue contains contributions from 23 scholars from New York
and the Vatican. Since conservators
cleaned and restored almost every painting and object for the tour, the catalogue
also presents a great deal of new visual
information about the works.
The Vatican Collections opens with

Pope Clement XIV acquired this fragmentary statue, the second-century
Roman "Eros ofCentoceUe, "in 1772from
the British painter and dealer Gavin
Hamilton, who found it north of Rome at
Centocelle. The finely wrought hair
suggests that it copies an original Greeh
bronze. Since 1780, the Eros has stood
in the Museo Pio-Clementino on this
first-century altar from the Early Christian church of San Lorenzo fuori le
Mura . Height, M centimeters .

works associated with the Early Christian basilica of Saint Peter. Built by
the Emperor Constantine (ca. A.D.285337) beginning about A.D. 320, the
church stood for almost 1,200years until
it was replaced by the vast basilica that
stands in its place today. Both churches
were erected over a tomb believed to be
that of the martyred apostle Peter,
Bishop of Rome. Early Christians sought

This personification of Charity, "loving
and maternal, is a bozzetto orshetch
by Gian Lorenzo Bernini fóra figure on
the gilt bronze tomb of Pòpe Urban
VIH in St Peter's. Oncepainted to look
like bronze, the recently cleaned terracotta surface now shows the fresh touch
of the sculptor. Bernini worked for
many popes during his lifetime, and gave
St. Peter's and the city of Rome much
of its Baroque grandeur. Height, 39 centimeters.

Archaeology Magazine - March/April 1983

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - March/April 1983