Vatican Museums

The subject the 5 Supplement to the Bollettino dei Monumenti, Musei e Gallerie Pontificie is the collection of textiles coming from pre-Columbian Peru, consisting of 26 finds: fabric fragments, cords and wool yarns, collected by the Swiss chemist Rodolphe Pfister.

Initially kept in the Vatican Apostolic Library, the collection became part of the Vatican Museums in 1999, but only in 2012 a systematic study of the fabrics and their classification took place. The results are published today in this volume.

In the first part Mario Cappozzo presents the figure of Pfister and retraces the history of the collection, investigating the areas of origin, particularly the excavations and antiques markets in Egypt. Jean-François Genotte then analyzes the archival documentation, in order to outline the historical, geographical and cultural framework in which the textiles were produced. Furthermore, the materials and execution techniques of pre-Columbian culture are analyzed.
The second part is the actual catalogue, reporting the essential information about each of the finds – inventory number, dimensions, material, culture, production area, dating, bibliography –, followed by the stylistic sheet, the technical sheet and the attribution, determined by means of an accurate iconographic and formal analysis.