The wonderful works” “

The famous marble group of Laocoon was accidentally found near Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome on 14 January 1506. It was Pope Julius II who ordered the architect Giuliano da Sangallo and Michelangelo Buonarroti to rush to the spot to ascertain for themselves the discovery of the “wonderful marble statue”: the pope, in fact, wanted to prevent others from acquiring it, and therefore purchased it himself for his own collection of antiquities. On 14 February of the same year the Laocoon was already placed on display in the Belvedere of the Vatican. It is just to this episode that the origin of the Vatican Museums is traced. The Director of the Vatican Museums, Francesco Buranelli , described it on 14 February, in presenting the year of celebrations marking the 5th centenary of the Vatican Museums (1506-2006). “It’s an unconventional commemoration and not just a symbolic one – said Cardinal Edmund Casimir Szoka , President of the Administration of Vatican City State – that takes its cue from this discovery and that wishes to unify a centuries-old history of culture and art that the Roman Pontiffs promoted with constancy and skill, collecting the works of the past in order to preserve them from oblivion and destruction and secure them for future generations”. Each year the Vatican Museums are visited by some four million people. The museums are served by 400 staff, of whom 260 are custodians. “DOORS OPEN ON THE WORLD”. Tracing the history of the Museums, Cardinal Szoka recalled the “artists of every period” who “were called to express themselves and reveal their own vocation at the service of Beauty and of Faith”. They gave rise to “a heritage of immeasurable spiritual value” that was placed at the disposal of humanity. The realization of the Museums therefore shows “the opening of the Church to the world of culture and to the cultures of the world, interacting with them, achieving transformations and enriching herself with new life blood”. “Art – the cardinal emphasized – becomes a language with which to communicate universal messages and values”. “Ever more often there is talk, in these times of upheaval and conflict, of the Museum as place of encounter and contacts, exchange and dialogue, maturation and reflection between different, and sometimes opposing, religions, cultures, experiences and conceptions of the world. Thanks to the ways in which it was formed, its spiritual significance, historical scope and natural vocation, the Vatican Museums are unique and unrivalled among all comparable major museum institutions”. “The almost four million visitors from five continents who visit our galleries each year admire the works of art and offer by their very presence the gift of a great variety of geographical, religious and cultural origins; they testify in an extraordinary way to this function of the Museums. It’s not by chance – he concluded – that John Paul II defined the Vatican Museums as one of the most significant doors of the Holy See open on the world”. THE CHRISTIAN MUSEUM RENOVATED. During 2006 the Vatican Museums, to celebrate their five centuries of history, will be promoting a series of events, which were presented by the Director Francesco Buranelli. The centenary year was inaugurated by the personnel of the Vatican Museums themselves, who gathered in prayer in the Sistine Chapel on 17 February and participated in a mass of thanksgiving. The renovated displays of two important Museums, which exemplify the commitment of the Roman popes to the promotion of evangelization through the language of art, will be inaugurated in the first half of the year. The programme of events will be opened on 16 March with the revamped Christian Museum founded by Benedict XIV in 1756-1757; it will re-propose the eighteenth-century finds from the catacombs, reassembled by contexts of provenance, after a meticulous programme of research. ORIENT AND MISSIONS. On 20 June, the China, Japan, Korea, Tibet and Mongolia sections of the Ethnological Missionary Museum will re-open. The works on display present the various indigenous religions and the influences that Christianity, Buddhism and Islam have exerted on local realities. A section of the museum will be dedicated to objects that testify to the reception of Christian values by local artists who came into contact with missionary activities. These works – explained Buranelli – “are tangible proof of the ecumenical form of the Christian message”. Another highlight on the centenary programme is on 27 April, when the restoration of the mural paintings realized by Pinturicchio in the Sala dei Misteri of the Borgia Apartments will be presented. In the autumn will follow the presentation of the new sector of the Roman cemeteries along the “Via Triumphalis” excavated three years ago. The celebrations will close with the exhibition “Laocoon: at the origins of the Vatican Museums”, which will be inaugurated in November in the multi-functional room of the Museums, and with an international conference “aimed at reflection and exchange on the theme of the museum as identity, essence and role in contemporary society”. For further info: ++39/06/69883041 – www.vatican.va