Vatican Museums

In the journey of preparation for the Jubilee Year 2025, the Vatican Museums and the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See, are proposing a joint project, “Bernini’s Souls”, an extraordinary exhibition from 19 November, in the Vatican Pinacoteca, of two youthful sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini created in 1619: the Blessed Soul and the Damned Soul, property of the “Opera Pia-Spanish Establishments in Italy”, and preserved at the Spanish Embassy.

The exhibition, curated by the Director of the Vatican Museums, Barbara Jatta, together with Helena Pérez Gallardo of the Complutense University of Madrid, will enable the public of the Pope’s Museums to admire, exceptionally, until 31 January 2025, two precious marble busts conserved, and generally not visible to the public, thanks to the initiative and collaboration of Her Excellency the Ambassador of Spain to the Holy See, Ms. Isabel Celaá.
The religious reference in the two works on display is clear: one appears rapt in contemplation of paradise while the other expresses all its horror and suffering in the presence of hell. In them, however, observes Professor Jatta, “the evocation of the current jubilee themes is entrusted precisely to Bernini's admirable ability to render the deepest and most elusive motions of the human soul with authentic mastery, using forms and methods that are often surprising or unpredictable”.

The Vatican Museums, responding to Pope Francis’ appeal to combine the spiritual dimension of the Holy year with a journey of cultural enrichment, could not but inaugurate their special calendar of “Events of Grace” with an initiative directly involving the great Baroque artist, today more than ever a key figure in the Vatican, following the important and symbolic restoration of two of his masterpieces in Saint Peter's Basilica: the Baldachin and the Cathedra.