Vatican Museums

“A century after the Vatican Missionary Exhibition, a watershed moment for a glocal world (1925-2025)” is the title of the International Conference to be held on 5 November at the IULM University in Palazzo Cipolla and on 6 November at the Pontifical Urbaniana University (morning session) and the Vatican Museums (afternoon session), on the occasion of the centenary of the historic initiative promoted by Pope Pius XI.

In 1925, to coincide with the Jubilee, the pontiff wanted to organise a Missionary Exposition in the Vatican, with the aim of illustrating the widespread diffusion of Catholic missions throughout the world and, at the same time, raising awareness of the cultural, artistic and spiritual traditions of different peoples. Inaugurated on 24 December 1924 and ending on 9 January 1926, the initiative attracted over a million visitors, achieving considerable public and critical success. The more than 100,000 works on display, from all over the world, were presented in twenty-six pavilions built especially for the occasion. The success of the initiative led Pius XI to found, on 12 November 1926, the Vatican Ethnological Museum, entrusting its direction to Father Wilhelm Schmidt SVD (1868–1954), a well-known ethnologist and organiser of the missionary exhibition. The following year, on 21 December 1927, the Missionary Ethnological Museum was inaugurated at Saint John Lateran, housing some 80,000 works selected from those presented at the Missionary Exhibition, thus giving new life to its exceptional heritage of objects and testimonies from all over the world. Today, the legacy of that museum lives on in the Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum, which has been completely renovated in terms of its layout and the choice of works on display.

A century later, the Conference intends to rediscover the value of that event, which represented a turning point in the Church’s view of cultures throughout the world.
Organised by the Pontifical Urbaniana University – Faculty of Missiology, the IULM University, the Vatican Museums and the Pontifical Committee of Historical Sciences, the meeting will involve the participation of Italian and international scholars, and will offer an important opportunity to reflect on missionary activity in the first quarter of the twentieth century. It will also provide an opportunity to highlight the extraordinary impact of the 1925 Exposition and the decisive role it played in the formation of the future ethnological collection of the Vatican Museums.

The meeting will be followed by a visit to the Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum to admire a continually evolving museum space.