Clementine Gallery I

Clementine Gallery I
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Clementine Gallery I

The encyclopaedic perspective of the collections

This sector demonstrates the “encyclopaedic” culture which led to the formation of the collections, previously belonging to the Vatican Library, emphasising their broad spatial and temporal view. At the same time, it underlines the attention that pontiffs from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries paid to archaeology and to the discoveries that were taking place outside the State of the Church: in Italy, the Middle East and Latin America.
The Gallery houses:

  • precious works that, from the Renaissance up to the present day, have been inspired by the classical world;

  • materials “discovered” during Pope Pius IX's visit to Pompeii on 22 October 1849

  • cuneiform inscriptions and middle-eastern seals, donated by Fr. Massimiliano Ryllo S.J. to Gregory XVI (1838)

  • artefacts from ancient Colombian cultures, donated to Leo XIII (1878-1903).