Giovanni Morello

In the framework of cultural initiatives which mark the phases towards the beginning of the Third Millennium of the Christian era, the Vatican Apostolic Library has prepared a significant programme of exhibitions.

At the end of December in the Sistine Hall, the traditional area where the Library’s exhibitions are held, the show "Becoming Saint" will be opened. It will cover the two thousand year history of sanctity, offering a significant cross-section of the most interesting figures which marked its path, in the total response to Christ and to His teaching.

Autographs, books owned by saints, ancient Passionaries and Lives of Saints, illuminated manuscripts and objects of art linked to canonizations, will offer to the visitors of the Vatican Museums, whose visit includes the Sistine Hall, an interesting path on sanctity and its ways.

This exhibition represents the central point of an expository trilogy dedicated to sanctity, which will open in the month of June at the Marciana Library in Venice with the exhibition "Christian Orient and Sanctity", to end in the National Library of Naples with the exhibition dedicated to Patron Saints.

It’s the third phase of a very successful project so far, promoted by the General Management for Library Goods of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, in the person of its Director General Francesco Sicilia, in agreement with the Vatican Apostolic Library and the Abbey of Montecassino in preparation for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, to increase the value of the great library heritage, printed and manuscripts, kept in Italy and in the Vatican, which certainly represents the most important deposit of the historical and cultural memory of the whole of humanity, and which certainly can supply stimuli and suggestions to face the new Millennium in the tradition of Christian experience.

The programme, significantly denominated "Bimillenary of Christ", was started in 1994 in the famous Abbey of Montecassino, cradle of Benedictine spirituality, with a unique and prestigious exhibition, which gathered nearly all the Exultet, that is, the famous liturgical scrolls of the southern Middle Ages, containing the text of the Pascal Preconio, which have reached our days.

This exhibition was followed by two other important shows: "Praying in secret", hosted in the Vallicelliana Library, dedicated to the books of private devotion, and "Liturgy in figure" at the Vatican Library, which presented the most famous liturgical books of the Middle East and Renaissance splendidly illustrated, kept at the Library of the Popes. In 1996, the second expository trilogy was destined to investigate the relations between classical culture and Christianity, while the last phase, scheduled for the Year 2000, will be dedicated to the figure of Christ and the Virgin, with a series of exhibitions which will involve not only the Vatican Apostolic Library and the Abbey of Montecassino, but also all the most important Italian state libraries.

It will be a significant prelude to the final phase of the exhibitions of the "Bimillenary of Christ", a major show of spiritual significance. The exhibition, organised by the Vatican Apostolic Library, and organised by me, will be entitled "The face of Christ" and will present in the Wing of Charlemagne, in Saint Peter’s Square, from June 1999, an exceptional collection of ancient icons, illuminated manuscripts and paintings by great artists who represented the face of the Saviour.

Through a path marked by the most ancient representations of the human features of Our Lord Jesus Christ and punctuated by finds which the devout tradition of our ancestors considered effigies and have miraculously reached our times, such as the Mandilion of Edessa, kept in the two examples of Genoa and the Vatican, the Veronica, the Acheropita of the Lateran, the Saint Face of Laon and the one of Manoppello, all images in direct relation with the Face of the Shroud, the aim is to offer the visitor nearly a visual meditation on the message and image of the Saviour.

Certainly an ambitious exhibition but which certainly, also due to the presence of works by important artists, will not fail to draw the interest of a large public, thus representing a worthy and significant prologue to the cultural schedule which will accompany the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000.