A Special Year Behind Us – Welcome 2022

Dear Patrons and Friends,

2021 was filled with its own set of challenges for all of us. Nevertheless let us look back and see what we accomplished together for the good of the museums and humanity. Our joint success should give us confidence to overcome any future challenges as we continue our mission of promoting, restoring, and conserving the artistic patrimony of the Vatican collection.

The video below highlights just some of our many accomplishments in 2021. I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you so much, again, for your support. We look forward to collaborating with you- our dear Patrons- in 2022 as well.

Happy New Year!

Our Projects and Accomplishments

In 2021 we were able to support over 35 restoration projects, we rolled out the second year of our Insiders Course, a unique way to get behind the scenes of our mission and discover the untold story of the Vatican Museums collections. We also made possible to launch not one but two crowdfunding projects dedicated to the group statues of the Three Graces and to the Histories of Santa Barbara. We have been selected for the 2021 Bank of America Art Conservation Project grant to help finance the restoration of the Apollo del Belvedere, one of the most admired among the ancient statues of Rome and we focused on giving the Ethnological Museums Anima Mundi the attention it needed to show how big and diverse our collections are. Above all this we finally celebrated with you your return to Rome and to our laboratories.

Click here to watch a video montage of the highlights of 2021

The Pinecone in the Bramante Courtyard

The Opus Sectile Project
at the St John Lateran Baptistery

In the upper part of the wall, at the corner with the apse arch of the chapel of Saints Cipriano and Giustina, in the ancient entrance of the Lateran Baptistery, there is a decoration in opus sectile. This Latin term indicates an art technique where stone materials were cut and inlaid into walls and floors to make a picture or pattern. The Lateran opus sectile was made using very hard marble, difficult to process and cut; also very expensive, such as red porphyry, coming from Egypt and used above all by the emperors (just think of the sarcophagus of Costanza or Sant’Elena, both related to Emperor Constantino) and the green porphyry, commonly called serpentino, from Greece.

Mr. William E. Dingman & Ms. Debra Wert adopted this project and you can see below the results of the restoration.