” “"Tu es Petrus" is the name of the exhibition that, starting tomorrow, 23rd February to 22nd April, will showcase in Villa Chiassi, Rome, for the first time outside the Vatican Walls, the collection of medals with which over the centuries the Popes had announced every key step of the building of Saint Peter’s Basilica. The event, organised by the Vatican Apostolic Library and the Numismatics Collections for the five hundredth anniversary of Saint Peter’s, was announced this morning in a conference in the Vatican Newsroom. "The Vatican Library said the deputy prefect of the Library, Ambrogio M.Piazzoni wanted to organise this exhibition with some unique pieces, the documentary relevance of which is often underestimated: the medals that have marked out the building of the basilica". They offer a picture of the history of Saint Peter’s "from 1506, when Julius II laid the first stone of the church which was to replace the one built by Constantine nearly 1200 years earlier on the tomb of the Apostle", a building process that "went on for over 150 years". "Every time a new part of the basilica began to be built explained Piazzoni a memorial medal was made and usually placed on the foundations". (to be continued)” “
