Table of contents:
- The Vatican as a huge museum of fine arts
- Why is most of the Vatican's artwork hidden from mere mortals?
- Why does the Vatican open access to its treasures?
Video: What is stored in the dark storerooms of the Vatican and how to see it for mere mortals
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The Vatican has special rooms - in complete darkness and with strict limitation of humidity and temperature, they store what every inhabitant of the planet who appreciates culture and art seeks to see. But no, access to such storage facilities is usually closed, and only occasionally, as now, over their mysterious contents, the curtain of secrecy is slightly opened for several months, until the priceless treasures are returned to their place.
The Vatican as a huge museum of fine arts
There is no need to remind about the wealth of the Vatican: there is hardly a person in the world who doubts that this state, the center of the Catholic world, owns priceless treasures or has free access to them. It is even difficult to separate facts from rumors - whether they relate to the gold reserve or the Holy Grail hidden behind seven seals and the dating of the origin or creation of the Turin Shroud. The wealth of the Vatican can be viewed from another side - even if they can be evaluated in monetary terms, they still remain priceless for mankind. The Vatican has the greatest art collection.
The official history says that the beginning of this collection was laid in 1506, when Pope Julius II bought a marble statue of Laocoon found under a layer of soil near the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, which turned out to be a Roman copy of a Greek bronze sculpture. The pope placed this work in the courtyard of the Belvedere garden, opening it to the public. And in 2006, the Vatican celebrated the five hundredth anniversary of its museums.
In general, the Vatican Museums are a huge complex that includes eight different museums, not counting the large collections housed in the papal palace. For example, just one collection of works of modern religious art occupies dozens of rooms. The most famous collection of paintings is the Vatican Pinakothek, in 18 halls of which 460 paintings by the greatest masters of the past are shown to visitors, each work related to a religious theme.
Since the Renaissance, the pontiffs have collected and stored the best works of painters, including paintings and frescoes by Raphael, Da Vinci, Titian, Caravaggio and other great artists of the Renaissance. And not only the Renaissance, of course - the Vatican is not alien to any epochs, trends and styles of fine art. An ordinary art connoisseur who finds himself among the collections of the Vatican museums will not be able to carefully examine all the exhibits - there are too many of them.
In total, according to official information, the Vatican owns 70 thousand works of art. Of these, only 20 thousand are on display.
Why is most of the Vatican's artwork hidden from mere mortals?
Fifty thousand masterpieces of painting, graphics, sculpture are hidden in storerooms, and many of the works stored there for tens and hundreds of years never left the storerooms and were not shown to the public. Are they waiting in the wings or are they doomed to eternal obscurity for reasons known only to the Vatican? However, the demonstration of the treasures of world art obeys a fairly simple logic: not only the best is exhibited, but also what fits into the official Catholic concepts and dogmas.
What is hidden in the Vatican's storerooms and why? Quite a lot of rumors accompany the mysterious Secret Archives - part of the vast Vatican library, the richest in the world and storing, perhaps, much more knowledge about humanity than high-ranking church officials are willing to disclose. But is the value of treasures - objects of fine art less valuable? In any case, one of the explanations for the fact that works of art of past centuries are kept closed to the public and in general in complete darkness is provided by art critics themselves. Often, graphic works are protected in this way from fading and loss of quality, they are stored in the absence of access to light, at a certain humidity and temperature.
In total, there are about four thousand such objects in the Vatican storehouses - prints, engravings, photographs and drawings. The collection, by the way, was formed relatively recently - in 1973, when the number of works at the disposal of the Vatican increased so much that it required systematization. And sometimes for a short period of time, these masterpieces still come to light in order to be demonstrated to connoisseurs of art.
This happens infrequently and becomes a real event. As, for example, the exhibition of artists of the XX century, which is currently taking place in the Vatican. The works of Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Henri Matisse, Edvard Munch and a dozen other masters, in total - one and a half hundred works, until the end of winter are presented to visitors to the wing of Charlemagne of Bernini's Colonnade, and - free of charge. At the end of the exhibition, these works will be returned to the storerooms - they will not be able to be seen within the framework of the permanent exhibition.
Why does the Vatican open access to its treasures?
It cannot be said that the Vatican collections were rarely shown to the public - on the contrary, recent years have been marked by a whole series of such exhibitions, including outside the capital of Catholicism, for example, in Russia. Often they exhibit works that have not previously left the Vatican and are generally not known to art critics outside this small state. Perhaps the leadership of the Catholic Church in this way responds to the needs of society, and therefore exhibits masterpieces of various genres and trends of the visual arts - Pre-Raphaelites and Impressionists, Cubists and Surrealists.
Milan, for example, is hosting this spring a small collection of works from the Vatican, united by the theme of the Passion of Christ, at this exhibition connoisseurs are offered the creations of Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Georges Brakk.
According to art critics, the Vatican is thus implementing a policy of restoring and strengthening the ties of the church with the modern world, with modern culture. Does this mean that sooner or later the world will be shown all the hidden treasures of the Vatican storerooms? Of course not - and thousands of unknown works of art will continue to silently await their hour in the darkness of storerooms, will keep their own secrets, and possibly the secrets of the past, from which the most powerful state in the world prefers to protect humanity.
About paintings that also disappeared from the field of view of art critics, but for a different reason: stolen masterpieces.
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