Vatican Museums

The itinerary dedicated to contemporary art concludes with a selection of recent acquisitions, illustrating the variety of formal possibilities generated by the dialogue between figuration and abstraction. The works on display in this room entered the Vatican collections in 2011, following the major exhibition Lo splendore della verità, la bellezza della carità, commemorating the 60^th anniversary of Benedict XVI’s ordination to the priesthood. For the occasion, sixty artists paid homage to the Pontiff with works specially realised or selected. A small number of the donations to the Holy Father subsequently entered the Collection, including Goccia d’acqua, ciclo della vita by Kengiro Azuma, L’Angelo sterminatore by Mario Ceroli, and two Studi per Porta dei Re del Duomo di Cefalù by Arnaldo Pomodoro.