6 March - 31 August 2025
The exhibition is conceived as a journey of the soul—a path that transcends the confines of art history to offer a reflection on the meaning of life through beauty. A spiritual and artistic itinerary through 38 masterpieces from major Italian museums, this refined homage explores the deep dialogue between papal patronage and sacred painting, from the Renaissance to the Baroque. Castel Sant’Angelo – 50, Lungotevere Castello
In the heart of monumental Rome, Castel Sant’Angelo transforms into a sanctuary of beauty and contemplation to host the exhibition The Art of the Popes. From Perugino to Barocci. Curated by Arnaldo Colasanti with the collaboration of Annamaria Bava, and promoted by the European Centre for Tourism and Culture under the presidency of Giuseppe Lepore, the exhibition is part of the official program of the Jubilee 2025, under the patronage of the Dicastery for Evangelization led by Archbishop Rino Fisichella.
Hosted in one of Christianity’s most symbolic sites, the exhibition brings together 38 works through a meticulous selection from prestigious institutions such as the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Antica – Palazzo Barberini and Galleria Corsini, and the Royal Museums of Turin – Galleria Sabauda, as well as the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca and civic institutions like the Civic Diocesan Museum of Acquapendente.
The Art of the Popes presents a thematic exhibition that departs from traditional chronological models to embrace an iconographic narrative shaped by spiritual resonance. Visitors are not led through a mere stylistic sequence, but through a symbolic journey that explores life’s greatest questions, mediated through painting and devotion.
Each artwork is not only a testament to technical mastery, but also a bearer of profound meaning: the Incarnation, forgiveness, mercy, hope, the suffering and redeemed humanity. The exhibition seeks to make visible, in the words of its curators, “the eternal dream of goodness” through a pictorial language both refined and moving.
The Jubilee context gives this event an added dimension. Art here becomes a vehicle for evangelization, as envisioned by the pontifical patrons. From the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation, the Church employed imagery as a pedagogical and salvific tool, capable of translating theology into lived and visual experience. This exhibition fully embodies that vision. It is a journey where tradition becomes contemporary, where the past speaks to the present through the universal language of beauty.
Thanks to the Popes, Rome became not only the Holy City but also a vibrant workshop that attracted international artists, drawn by the patronage of the clergy and aristocracy. The Popes acted as pivotal patrons in the development of the figurative arts in Italy.
Their influence shaped not only the urban fabric of Rome but also fostered artistic production capable of resonating across Europe. Within this climate, the exhibition aims to honor that legacy, emphasizing the central role of papal and ecclesiastical patronage in the creation of some of the highest achievements in Italian painting. It seeks to tell stories of faith, hope, redemption, and forgiveness—but also of suffering and sacrifice—through rarely displayed works.
During the centuries in which the Papacy’s temporal and spiritual power was at its zenith, Rome became a crossroads of artists and ideas. The city functioned as a vast construction site: basilicas were adorned, private chapels commissioned elaborate iconographic programs, and cardinal residences became sanctuaries of sacred art. Within this context, painters like Perugino, Annibale Carracci, Federico Barocci, and many others found fertile ground to develop a new grammar of sacred imagery—one that united classical idealization with Christian pathos.
The works on display respond to a precise need of the Church: to communicate the mysteries of the Christian faith to the people in an accessible, emotionally impactful, and visually compelling manner. The exhibition therefore documents not only a stylistic evolution, but also a function: the image as a lectio divina for the eyes, a tool for meditation, a path to the knowledge of the Invisible.
Within the tradition of Western Christianity, imagery has always served an essential function: to educate, to transmit, to move. In an age when most of the population was illiterate, sacred painting served as a genuine didactic instrument in service of the Church. These images, whether displayed in churches, apostolic palaces, or commissioned by popes for chapels and convents, were designed to illustrate dogmas, the Gospels, and the lives of the saints, making the content of faith accessible even to the unlettered.
These works were not merely ornamental; the painting was a form of silent preaching, capable of acting with more immediacy and persuasive power than spoken words. Facial expressions, liturgical gestures, coded symbols, and narrative scenographies enabled the viewer to identify with the protagonists of sacred history. Thus emerged the idea—echoed by the Church Fathers—that “art speaks to the heart when words fail the intellect.”
During the Renaissance, and with renewed vigor during the Counter-Reformation, the Council of Trent (1545–1563) reaffirmed the need for figurative art to support faith, provided it was oriented toward clarity, decorum, and truth. The artist thus became an ally of the theologian: sacred art was now “theology in images.” It is within this vision that the profound intent of the exhibition is to be understood: to evoke that era when the brush was a pastoral tool, and the painting a window into the divine.
The display is articulated in eight thematic sections, each exploring a specific dimension of the Christian experience. The artworks are not arranged according to the chronology of the artists, but through theological, emotional, and symbolic affinities. This curatorial approach allows for dialogue between works distant in time yet close in spirit.
The exhibited works articulate the essential themes of the Gospel: childhood, forgiveness, the face of the Mother, the lesson of poverty, the hope of the beloved lover, the wisdom of the saints, and the fidelity of the Church. Through painting, the exhibition narrates Rome’s enduring desire to be a holy city, guardian of an artistic heritage built over centuries through the commitment of the Popes.
Among the most significant works on display are:
The exhibition continues with works by masters such as Perugino, Annibale Carracci, Pietro da Cortona, Cavalier d’Arpino, Pompeo Batoni, Giovanni Battista Salvi, known as Sassoferrato, Anton Raphael Mengs, and Battistello Caracciolo. The itinerary culminates in the luminous visions of Federico Barocci, whose unmistakable rose-tinted clouds lend the sacred scenes a dreamlike and mystical dimension.
The exhibition ideally opens with Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci, known as Perugino, and closes with Federico Barocci, two artistic and spiritual poles that represent crucial stages in the path of Italian sacred painting. The first is an expression of the classical grace of the early Renaissance; the second, of the interior lyricism and visionary nature of full Mannerism, a precursor of the Baroque. Between these two extremes, a century and a half of extraordinary creativity developed, nourished by religious ferment and papal patronage.
Perugino, master to the young Raphael, imposes a balanced and serene style: his characters appear immersed in a suspended atmosphere, where time seems to stop in contemplation. His Madonnas and Christs do not shout, but welcome; the silence that pervades his hilly landscapes is the same as prayer. The humanistic ideal merges with spiritual elevation: beauty and truth are identified.
Federico Barocci, on the other hand, anticipates modern sensibilities. His compositions are animated by a theatrical pathos, by vibrant colors, by a mystical sense that manifests itself in emphatic gestures, in glances turned to the sky, in emotionally charged atmospheres. His “pink clouds”, which have become almost a stylistic trademark, transfigure the sacred scene into an ecstatic vision. Barocci’s humanity is tender, affective, deeply embodied: faith becomes a carnal and sentimental experience.
Between these two artistic poles, the exhibition presents a constellation of equally essential figures: Annibale Carracci, innovator of the Bolognese school, ushered in a new realism in religious representation; Pietro da Cortona, with the sweeping energy of the Roman Baroque, explored the dynamic interplay between heaven and earth; Giovanni Battista Salvi, known as Sassoferrato, devoted singer of the face of Mary and Pompeo Batoni, protagonist of the age of the Roman Counter-Reformation. This long chronological span allows the visitor to grasp the evolution of the forms, but also the persistence of a unitary intention: that of representing the mystery through beauty.
A central theme of the exhibition is the representation of the sacred feminine figure, explored both in the form of the Virgin Mary and in that of female saints and biblical women. Within the patriarchal context of the Church, art has been able to express with deep sensitivity the centrality of the feminine in the history of salvation.
The Madonna, in particular, is the most frequently depicted figure in the history of Christian art. From the Byzantine Theotokos to the seventeenth-century Mater Dolorosa, her face has become a mirror of compassion, tenderness, and intercession. In this exhibition, the variety of Marian depictions illustrates not only popular devotion and theological development but also how painting has expressed human emotion, motherhood, and piety.
The Madonnas of Sassoferrato, for instance, are true portraits of the soul: downcast eyes, hands gently clasped, pearlescent complexions, faces of a beauty that becomes silent prayer.
Alongside Mary, the exhibition includes other female figures laden with symbolic and spiritual significance: Mary Magdalene, emblem of conversion and redemptive love; Saint Catherine of Alexandria, with her martyrdom of wisdom; and Saint Teresa of Ávila, embodiment of mystical ecstasy. Through these faces, the exhibition offers a complex and nuanced image of womanhood within Christian tradition—not relegated to a subordinate role but elevated as a privileged witness of the divine.
It is significant that many of these works were intended for private contexts: family chapels, female convents, oratories. This speaks to a form of domestic devotion, intimate and often feminine, that fueled artistic production and the dissemination of sacred imagery. Marian iconography, in particular, thus becomes a bridge between heaven and earth, between theology and humanity, between the sublime and the everyday.
One of the most original aspects of the exhibition is its openness to a contemporary visual language. Several rooms host recent works by artists such as Bruno Ceccobelli, Luigi Stoisa, Giuseppe Salvatori, and Giorgio Di Giorgio, who engage with the same themes found in early sacred painting—faith, the divine, absence, redemption—but through the expressive codes of twentieth- and twenty-first-century art.
These contemporary presences are neither artificial nor peripheral. On the contrary, they offer a renewed lens through which to interpret the relationship between art and spirituality. Ceccobelli, for instance, with his poetics grounded in alchemical materials and archetypal symbolism, revitalizes the meditative function of the image. Stoisa, through the use of humble materials and forceful gestures, evokes the dimension of suffering and purification. Salvatori explores the theme of light as epiphany, while Di Giorgio reinterprets the sacred in conceptual terms, often starting from the fragmentation of traditional iconography.
These works engage in an ideal dialogue with the masterpieces of the past—not through stylistic continuity, but through a shared thematic persistence. They affirm that even in a secularized age, the need for the sacred, for beauty, for meaning has not disappeared. When authentic, art continues to interrogate the mystery; it becomes a space for transcendence. Far from being anachronistic, religious painting reveals itself to be more relevant than ever: capable of filling the voids of the present with an intensity that goes beyond the visible surface.
The Art of the Popes is more than a museum exhibition: it is a rare opportunity to revisit the complex dialogue between power and spirituality, art and theology, beauty and mercy. It is an invitation to contemplation, to rediscovering the richness of Italian artistic heritage, and to personal introspection. In an age of fleeting, consumable images, this exhibition restores to the gaze its sacred value. Every canvas is an invitation to pause between beauty and faith; every painted face, a mirror of transfigured humanity.
In the context of the Jubilee, visiting this exhibition also means reconnecting with a tradition of faith that has always found its visible expression in art. It is an occasion to discover Rome’s history through the eyes of its artists and Popes, and to approach a beauty that is not self-serving, but a vehicle of redemption—a res mirabilis capable of uplifting the soul.
Art thus becomes the language through which the city expresses its memory, its tradition, and its universal ideal of beauty and redemption. The exhibition offers a thematic experience which, beyond any chronological rigor, addresses the essential themes of the Gospel: childhood, maternity, joy and suffering, resurrection, mercy, and hope.
Your opinions and comments
Share your personal experience with the ArcheoRoma community, indicating on a 1 to 5 star rating, how much you recommend "The Art of the Popes – From Perugino to Barocci"
Similar events