SPECIAL PROJECTS

Exclusive Patrons Tour in the Vatican Museums

Being restored thanks to the generosity of the Pennsylvania Chapter

In collaboration with Antenna Audio, the Vatican Museums Patron’s Office proposes an exclusive Patron audio-tour for our donors. The aim is to meet the expectations of the Patrons, in line with the aims and spirit of our unique organization: to protect, preserve and promote the heritage of art that belongs to all of humanity. Once a Patron’s personalized tour concludes with our private guide, they will receive an audio guide and be able to wander in the Museums at their leisure, finding out about new restorations and works of art sponsored by their own chapter, together with an explanation of the most important highlights of our spectacular collection! They will have a chance to live the Museums for the whole day and experience the beauty of the Etruscan Collection, the magic of the Egyptian and Ethnological Museums, the treasures of the Painting Gallery and the Pio-Christian Museums. Antenna Audio is the world leader in audio and audio-visual interpretation. Every single day, more than 50,000 people worldwide are inspired and stimulated by an Antenna Audio tour in museums, archaeological sites and visitor attractions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, London's National Gallery, the Louvre and the Vatican Museums. Antenna Audio Solutions bring the collections to life through the use of well crafted scripts, music, images, video, sound effects, and archival audio or audio-visual material. Designed for all different audiences and environments, Antenna Audio Solutions offer a comprehensive approach to the diverse educational and interpretive needs of their clients. Antenna Audio will produce a 40 stop tour of the Museums to highlight the Patrons’ projects and the main attractions of the Museums. This experience will be given to Patrons to compliment their private tour. The project includes the writing, taping, prduction, mixing and loading onto the Patron audio guides.

Coffered Wooden Ceiling of San Pellegrino Vatican City

Being restored thanks to the generosity of the Pennsylvania Chapter

The small church of San Pellegrino is situated on the ancient road travelled by pilgrims from the north on their way to Saint Peter’s Basilica at the end of Via Francigena (Via Trionfale). The oldest structures of the building date back to approximately the 9th century, the time of Charlemagne and Pope Leo III (795- 816), when the church was a hospice for the reception of pilgrims and the care of the cemetery of San Pellegrino in Naumachi was assigned to the chapter of the Basilica of St. Peter. Perhaps precisely because of its location on the road trodden by pilgrims, the building took the name San Pellegrino after the missionary in Gaul and the first bishop of Auxerre who was martyred in the fourth century. The term naumachia refers to both the re-enactment of naval battles and the basin or complex in which these took place. The complex consisted of a broad space on which stood an ancient and imposing building surrounded by an artificial lake or mote. A small island, a symbol of security, was in the center of the lake where the Roman emperors enacted these naval battles for amusement. An ancient tradition tells that Charlemagne gave the church the relics of San Pellegrino on the occasion of his coronation on Christmas Day in 800. The original building was simple with only an apsidal hall decorated with frescoes. Over the centuries, the church and frescoes have undergone several restorations. Between the XIII and XV centuries, several popes such as Innocent III, Gregory IX, Boniface IX and Nicholas V, were interested in the church of San Pellegrino. In 1653 under Pope Innocent X (1644-1655), the commander of the Swiss Guard, Rudolf von Pfyffer, asked for and obtained the church with the adjoining cemetery from the pope. For centuries it was used by the body of the Swiss Guard. They are responsible for its current façade, built in 1671. In 1932 the Gendarmerie, or Vatican Police, began using the chapel as their spiritual home. The valuable, finely decorated wooden coffered ceiling likely dates back to the 1600’s, painted with the coats of arms of the Guard commanders. For example, one can see the lilies of Pfyffer von Altishofen and the Röist flower. It is a wooden coffered ceiling consisting of hollow compartments arranged in regular retrieves, a technique previously used in ancient architecture (a typical example is the Roman Basilica of Maxentius), popular in the Renaissance and Baroque periods and has found wide use even later, especially in neoclassical architecture. This technique was used not only to reduce the weight of the ceiling, as in the Rotunda of the Pantheon, but also for decorative purposes. The ceiling of San Pellegrino is a good example of this decorative intention with its blue, green and yellow gold coffers.

Church of San Salvatore, Vatican City Missionaries of Charity House for Service to the Poor

Being restored thanks to the generosity of the Ohio Chapter

The Church of St. Salvatore of Terrione, popularly known as “di Ossibus,” is near the Palace of the Holy Office a few meters from the southern arm of the Bernini portico of St. Peter’s. It marks the western most point of the Vatican City State. Referred to in some historical documents as St. Salvatore of Ossibus due to confusion with a similarly named medieval church, this church was most properly called “of Terrione” after ruins near the present Roman Porta Cavalleggeri. The oldest names date from the pontificate of Leo IV (847-855). A decree from the pope names the church of St. Salvatore “in Terrione.” According to some studies the Scuola Francorum founded by Charlemagne, was attached. The Church appears again later in historical sources in both 1053 and 1186. During the pontificate of Nicholas V (1447-1455), the church was restored but it is not known whether it was by direct intervention of the pope or by another person, reported by Grimaldi in 1619 (Cod. Vatic. Barber. 2733, f. 326). The coat of arms of Nicholas V is painted inside the church, likely as testimony that he undertook this restoration. The interior frescoes are largely original and identifiable by the 15th century insignias which bear the same stylistic characteristics as the frescoes. In 1922-1923 Pope Pius XI (1922-1939) gave the grounds at Nero’s Circus to the Knights of Columbus so they could build the Oratory for St. Peter’s. Several buildings were destroyed during this time. The Church of St. Salvatore of Terrione, however, was saved and used as a chapel for the Oratory. Between 1923 and 1924 the Knights of Columbus conducted restoration on the building. Among the works restored were stained glass windows which bear the insignia of the association. The original work of the Middle Ages is no longer present. The small church appears clearly and three dimensionally outlined for the first time in the perspective map of G.B. Falda of 1676. It successively appears in the Map of Rome of G.B. Nolli in 1748. A topographic map of the area of the Guida de Touring Club Italiano and a photograph in 1917 of the Photographic Archives in the Vatican Museums document the status of the building and its relationship with its surroundings around the beginning of the 20th century, before the restorations performed by the Knights of Columbus. Architectural forms, such as illusionary columns, are painted on the walls and are found in a limited number of documents from the early Renaissance period until about the middle of the 15th century. The Vatican is conserving the environment of the Biblioteca Graeca (Greek Library) located on the ground level of the Palace of Nicholas V, in which the decoration was probably coeval to the 15th century restoration of St. Salvatore of Terrione. The most recent studies of the frescoes in the library and the church propagate the authorship of these decorations to Andrea del Castagno. The chapel now serves the community of the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta. The nuns hold daily prayer and adoration in this medieval chapel which connects to the corner buildings given them as a house for the poor. In the chapel of St. Salvatore they gain strength to joyfully serve the poorest of the poor with a soup kitchen that offers warm meals daily.