Vatican Museums

From 29 October, an extraordinary exhibition will look back on one hundred years of papal transport, from Pius XI’s first automobile to the contemporary Popemobiles. Housed in a glass-fronted exhibition pavilion in the area of the Square Garden, near the Pavilion of Carriages and the Vatican Pinacoteca, the exhibition brings together eight historic Mercedes-Benz cars, key protagonists of papal mobility, offering visitors a journey through the history of the automobile, social customs, communication and ecclesiastical institutions.

The eight historic vehicles, flanked by the world’s first automobile and a modern S-Class, bear witness to the convergence of human ingenuity and the universal mission of the Church. “It all begins with a journey: that of Peter, the fisherman from Galilee who came to Rome to proclaim a message destined to span the centuries and continents”, says Sandro Barbagallo, Curator of the Historical Collections of the Vatican Museums. Since then, the history of the Papacy has also been a history of journeys, encounters and transformations, in which the movements of Peter’s successor have, from time to time, taken on the significance of an evangelizing mission, a diplomatic initiative, a political gesture or a demonstration of closeness to peoples.

It is from this perspective that “A century of the Popemobile” was conceived, an exhibition celebrating the extraordinary relationship between the manufacturer of the three-pointed Star and the Holy See, which began in 1930 with the handover to Pius XI of the Mercedes-Benz Nürburg 460. It marked the beginning of a collaboration destined to be renewed throughout successive pontificates and to accompany a radical transformation: from the car conceived as a symbol of representation to the Popemobile designed as a means of reaching out to people.