{"product_id":"the-vatican-collections-the-papacy-and-art","title":"The Vatican Collections: The Papacy and Art","description":"\u003cp\u003eMany of the Vaticans supreme art treasures are represented in the unprecedented exhibition that is the occasion for this book. These works are drawn not only from the Vatican Museums  but from Saint Peters and its Treasury  the Apostolic Palaces  and the Vatican Library. Thus  this volume brilliantly illustrates the entire history of papal patronage and collectingthe single longest and most influential collecting tradition in the Western world. The objects range from ancient Greek vases and sculptures to modern works by Henri Matisse and Andr Derain. Ever since the founding of Saint Peters  about 320  popes have commissioned  preserved  and acquired works of art. The catalogue traces the development of these activities through the centuries  opening with an illustrated history of the Vatican Museums by Carlo Pietrangeli  the director general. Each of the fifteen sections explores a different aspect of the Vatican collections and is introduced by an informative essay. These introductions and the scholarly texts that describe each of the more than two hundred works in the exhibition were written by eminent curators at the Vatican Museums and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the first two sections are examples of the few surviving remains from the decoration of Old Saint Peters  the church that stood on the site of the present basilica and was torn down in the fifteenth century to make way for it. These works include two precious mosaics  two fresco fragments of Saints Peter and Paul  and a series of eight reliefs from the fifteenth-century ciborium of the high altar. The next four sections highlight papal patronage from the Late Gothic through the Baroque period  and the objects illustrated evoke the beauty of the Apostolic Palaces. Raphaels tapestry  The Miraculous Draft of Fishes  and two splendid sculptures from antiquity  the Apollo Belvedere and the Belvedere Torso  convey  in a dramatic juxtaposition  the harmonious and powerful vision at the heart of High Renaissance artistry. A set of pontifical vestments  as well as the monumental silver-gilt cross and two of the candlesticks for the main altar of the new basilica  recalls the solemn splendor of the Renaissance church  while several works by Bernini remind the reader of the role played by this artist  along with popes Urban VIII and Alexander VII  in fostering Baroque art. The emphasis of papal patronage shifted  in the eighteenth century  from the commissioning of elaborate artistic ensembles to a preoccupation with historic studies and systematic collecting; this period is the focus of the next seven sections of the volume. The first three are concerned with the Vatican collections formed in the eighteenth century: the Museo Sacro  with its Early Medieval reliquaries from the Treasury of the Sancta Sanctorum and its incomparable Byzantine and Romanesque ivories; the Museo Pio-Clementino  created to house antiquities excavated in the Papal States  including the Apollo Musagetes and the Eros of Centocelle; and the important paintings collection of the Pinacoteca  which includes precious panels by Sassetta  Gentile da Fabriano  Fra Angelico  and Raphael. Papal collecting responded to the archaeological inquiry of the nineteenth century with the creation of four museums: the Museo Gregoriano Egizio  the Museo Gregoriano Etrusco  the Museo Gregoriano Profano  and the Museo Pio Cristiano. It is from their immense holdings that the significant selections in the next four sections were madeincluding precious Greek and Etruscan vases  early Roman portraits  and rare Early Christian and Jewish inscriptions  all set off by such masterpieces as the Augustus of Prima Porta and the statue of The Good Shepherd. In the twentieth century  papal patronage and collecting continued to expand in new directions. From the Pontificio Museo Missionario-Etnologicoo come the African  Oceanic  and Pre-Columbian works shown here. The art of Georges Rouault  Ben Shahn  and Giacomo Manzu from the Collezione dArte Religiosa Moderna  the most recently founded museum in the Vatican  is featured in the final section of the catalogue. This book was originally published in 1982 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.  Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art\/Distributed by Yale University Press\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44965912248373,"sku":"ByrdShop_0300201648","price":111.01,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780300201642.jpg?v=1770549202","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-vatican-collections-the-papacy-and-art","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}