‘Vatican Splendors’ features treasures

By ANTHONY McCARTNEY

The exhibit features roughly 200 items.

CLEVELAND — It’s not often the Vatican goes on a road show.

When you’re one of the planet’s foremost cultural and religious institutions, the world tends to come to you. Those who want to see art commissioned by the popes or vie for an up-close look at Pope Benedict XVI’s fisherman’s ring generally have to brave a trip to Rome.

“Vatican Splendors From Saint Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museums and the Swiss Guard,” which opens Saturday at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, brings some of the Catholic Church’s most exquisite items to the United States. The exhibition opened in St. Petersburg, Fla., earlier this year, and will hit St. Paul, Minn., the third and final city of the tour, in the fall.

It is not some watered-down collection, as the exhibit’s first room demonstrates.

“The Madonna del Sassoferrato,” a painting of the Virgin Mary that has graced many holiday cards but never been exhibited outside Rome, is one of the first works to greet visitors. And at the center of the room is a display case with a silver and gold reliquary said to contain the bones of St. Peter and other saints.

But the star of the room, and indeed the collection, is the Mandylion of Edessa. For believers, the gaunt, bearded face staring from the cloth is the likeness of Jesus, and is among a rare class of artifacts deemed “not made by human hands.”

Religious lore has it that Jesus pressed a handkerchief to his face, leaving an indelible imprint of his likeness much like the Shroud of Turin. Scientific evidence suggests it is a painting, but regardless, the object remains one of the Vatican’s prized possessions.

Other segments of the show offer similarly awe-inspiring pieces. Mosaics dating as far back as the eighth century, a compass supposedly used by Michelangelo, and portraits, statues and papal vestments are among the roughly 200 items on display.

So, too, are dozens of items created by and for the popes, including the iconic staff that Pope John Paul II was often filmed with and Benedict XVI’s fisherman’s ring, one of the first items conferred to new popes.

“This is just a taste of all the wealth of art and its beauty the Vatican owns,” said Monsignor Roberto Zagnoli, one of three curators of the Vatican Museums.

He accompanied the exhibit to Florida, the first of three stops in the United States. After it closes there in May, the exhibit moves on to Cleveland, and finally St. Paul, Minn. The items then return to Rome, where they cannot be absent for more than a year.

“Even if you go to Rome, you won’t see some of these things,” said Peter Radetsky, a former professor and writer who helped develop the exhibit. “They’re just not displayed.”

Some of the items have been to North America before on a previous tour of items from the Vatican Museums. And at least one journeyed across the Atlantic prior to that — a wooden missal stand wrapped in fish scales that was reportedly used by Christopher Columbus’ chaplain on his voyages to the Americas.

The exhibit’s narrative is meant to celebrate three events in Vatican history from the early 16th century — the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica and the creation of the Vatican Museums and Swiss Guard, now the world’s smallest army.

Displays trace the church from St. Peter — considered the first pope — to its most recent ones, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Though the more recent popes are familiar to modern Catholics, the exhibits also feature the larger-than-life tenure of Pope Julius II.

As an early 16th-century pope, Julius II led the church’s armies into battle. His 11-year rule was not marked with blood, but also sparked some of the Renaissance’s most remarkable artwork. It was Julius II’s often petulant relationship with Michelangelo that produced the painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

To try to give visitors a sense of the achievement, and why Michelangelo famously complained the project was destroying his back and eyesight, one area re-creates the scaffolding and tools he used to create his masterpiece.

The display requires a bit of imagination. While Michelangelo’s iconic image of God reaching for the finger of Adam is reproduced overhead, the scaffolding is at best 10 feet tall. Michelangelo endured even harsher conditions and painted on wet plaster, a medium known as fresco that he had to learn to use.

“Michelangelo had to more or less teach himself on the job, fresco painting, 60 feet high in the Sistine Chapel for four years,” Radetsky said.

While imagination may be required for some of the exhibits, its creators, including Zagnoli, say faith is not.

“Just to see it is a jolt in the spirit, without any religious connotation at all,” Radetsky said. “You get a sense of the great work that human hands can do over 2,000 years and more.”