Vatican Museums

The volume is dedicated to the Salus Populi Romani icon, enshrined in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major and traditionally venerated by the inhabitants of the Eternal City and beyond. The work has recently undergone major restoration by specialists from the Vatican Museums, and the results of this work are now, for the first time, presented to the vast public of scholars, enthusiasts and devotees.

The book is structured in three main sections. The first is dedicated to the iconography and the historical-artistic vicissitudes of the sacred image, and presents an accurate study of the venerated image in the context of the medieval artistic-devotional tradition. The second one describes and examines in depth the restoration work itself, gathering the contributions by restorers who worked on the icon’s pictorial surface and wooden support. Finally, the last section is focused on the diagnostic analysis carried out by the Cabinet of Scientific Research of the Vatican Museums and on the conservation strategies implemented to best preserve the Salus Populi Romani in complete safety. All contributions are accompanied by a rich iconographic apparatus, in which old photographs are paired with a new photographic campaign on the icon, together with graphs and tables processed by state-of-the-art software applications.