Icons of Hope
Icons of Hope

Icons of Hope

A Journey of Faith in the Vatican Museums

16 December 2024 – 16 February 2025
Church of Sant’Agnese in Agone, Rome

The Dicastery for Evangelization, Section for Fundamental Questions regarding Evangelization in the World, responsible for the organization of the 2025 Ordinary Jubilee, in collaboration with the Directorate of the Museums and Cultural Heritage – Governorate of Vatican City State, is inaugurating the fifth event of art and faith of the “The Jubilee is Culture” programme, a week ahead of the opening of the Holy Door of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

From 16 December 2024 until 16 February 2025, it will be possible to visit, in the Church of Sant’Agnese in Agone in Rome, the exhibition of the icons from the East entitled “Icons of Hope. A Journey of Faith in the Vatican Museums”, jointly curated by Anna Pizzamano and Pietro Beresh of the Vatican Museums Byzantine and Medieval Art Department.
The initiative forms part of the cultural path towards the Holy Year, and will accompany both temporally and spiritually the opening of the twenty-seventh Ordinary Jubilee in history and the second of Pope Francis’ pontificate.

In the wonderful baroque church in Piazza Navona – “a highly accessible place for everyone”, the promoters emphasize – visitors will be able to admire, free of charge, inside Borromini’s evocative sacristy, an exhibition of some rare Byzantine icons from the Pope’s Museums. “Eighteen works have been selected by our curators, chosen from the entire entire of Christian eastern Europe: Greece, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, and Macedonia”, explains the Director Barbara Jatta. “We have called them icons of hope, in line with the Jubilee motto, precisely because they are vehicles of peace and brotherhood, was shown by the mix of styles. Placing them all together is tantamount to saying that they are all bearers of the same message. The majority are paintings, recently restored thanks to the work of the master craftspeople of the Paintings and Wood Materials Laboratory and the Metals and Ceramics Laboratory, supported by research conducted by the Cabinet of Scientific Research applied to the Cultural Heritage of the Vatican Museums”.
This particular type of religious art, painted as a form of prayer and destined for personal devotion or public worship, is deeply rooted in the history of Christianity and in the Byzantine tradition. The icons were, and still are, blessed, incensed, venerated; this is why the bond with the liturgy and the faithful is very strong”.
The works on display – depicting characters and scenes from the life of Jesus, Mary and the Saints – were created over a broad chronological span (fifteenth to early twentieth century) and are an expression of the profound bond uniting centuries, generations and territories. The materials used are also diverse, from tempera on panel to oil or mixed techniques, not to mention the precious metal covers (rizas) enriched with enamels and precious stones. Also significant is the typological variety of artefacts on display: votive icons, for liturgical use and personal prayer, travel triptychs and Menologi.

“The icon is not only painted”, emphasizes the Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, His Excellency Archbishop Rino Fisichella. “It becomes an authentic scripture where the history of salvation can be read. History teaches us about the many pilgrims who carried the icon with them so as not to feel alone on their journey, but as part of company of saints. We hope that those who will have the opportunity to visit the exhibition will be able to contemplate the mystery that emerges from the icon in order to appropriate the holiness it intends to express”.
The Vatican Museums’ permanent collection of icons – currently and temporarily inaccessible – has been formed over the centuries thanks to legacies, acquisitions, gifts, and constitutes an important collection of sacred images, an expression of the theology, religiosity and aesthetic canons of Eastern Christianity. The paintings have been part of the pontifical collections since 1762, as part of the Sacred Museum of the Vatican Apostolic Library, established by Pope Benedict XIV. The religious value of which they are an expression, from the very first phases of their creation, distinguishes them from other works of art and makes them deserving of privileged attention. For this reason, the Directorate of Museums and Cultural Heritage has already launched a study project aimed at the valorisation and re-installation, by 2026, of these special “prayers in images” in museum settings more suited to the prayerful contemplation of their mystery and sacredness.

The exhibition will be open every day from 09.00 a.m. to 07.00 p.m., with free entry.