Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “The new museum tour, in the place where it was created and for the contents of the works that are exhibited, certainly makes an important contribution towards the goal of broader dissemination of the activities of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and thus, towards a more effective fulfilment of its institutional purposes.” This was underlined by the under-secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Father Massimo Cenci, P.I.M.E., during a press conference today inaugurating the new Missionary Museum of Propaganda Fide, housed in the Roman palazzo which is the headquarters of the Missionary Dicastery near the Spanish Steps.
Prof. Francesco Buranelli, Coordinator of the Scientific Committee of the Missionary Museum, said in his speech that the activity of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide over a life-span of nearly four centuries, has allowed us to collect a large amount of information, documents and works of art. “The effort taken by the Congregation, under the careful guidance of Cardinal Ivan Dias, has the clear objective of recovering a historical and cultural background of great documentary and artistic relevance, which witnesses to the missionary spirit that has propelled so many priests and men and women religious, throughout the centuries, to witness to Christian values in the deepest corners of the earth,” Buranelli said.
The Museum, which occupies a total area of about 1,250 square meters of the palazzo of Propaganda Fide, in itself a work of art, for the first time open to visit permanently to the public, presents masterpieces which have been, for the most part, unseen. In the first room, a video projected on a large globe, tells of the origins, history and missionary activity of the Congregation. So, in a multimedia room, you can consult, for the first time, the unedited photographic resources of Fides, consisting of over ten thousand photographs taken during the long and perilous journeys in missionary lands by the members of the Dicastery from the beginning of the twentieth century. In the Borgia Room there is an exhibition of precious objects from the collection of Cardinal Stefano Borgia (1731-1804), a man of vast culture, Secretary and Prefect of the Congregation. Then you pass into the Barberini Library, completely renovated, with monumental shelving. On the landing halfway up the library you can see the portraits of some distinguished alumni of the College.
In the Missionary Room, however, the legacy of Mons. Carlos Cuarteròn is preserved, the protagonist of an adventurous journey to the Philippine Islands in 1850s, as a result of which he donated some paintings to Propaganda Fide to portray the places he explored and famous natives, sultans and rajas, he met on occasion. On the opposite wall paintings are exhibited by the Japanese artist, Teresa Kimiko Koseki, painted in 1930 to represent scenes of everyday family life and to describe, with great attention to the particular environments, objects and clothing, traditionally used in Japan at the time. At the back of the room, finally, dominates the monument in memorial to the 22 Ugandan martyrs which was donated to Pope Paul VI during his Pastoral Visit to Africa (1969). The next room is devoted to the history and architecture of the palazzo, which can be traced via the model of the building, illustrated by a video, and drawings by Borromini. The prestigious art gallery forms the final part of the Museum's exhibition, the result of many donations that followed over time, largely unseen, and finally put in order in the large gallery on the first floor, where important paintings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been hung.
The Museum also includes the Borromini Chapel of the Magi and the Newman Chapel, dedicated to the English cleric who was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI, who after converting to Catholicism, lived and studied in the Urban College, then was housed in the Palazzo of Propaganda Fide, and here he celebrated his first Mass. For more information: museomissionario@propagandafide.va Telephone: (39) 06 698 80266. (SL) (Agenzia Fides 09/12/2010)
