At 10.00 today a press conference was held at the Holy See Press Office, Via della Conciliazione 54, to present the exhibition “EN ROUTE”, produced by the Vatican Apostolic Library for the Jubilee 2025.

The speakers were: Archbishop Angelo Vincenzo Zani, archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman Church; Don Giacomo Cardinali, commissioner of the Exhibition Hall of the Vatican Apostolic Library; Lorenzo Jovanotti Cherubini, artist; Maria Grazia Chiuri, artistic director of the Dior women’s collections; Karishma Swali, creative director of Chanakya School of Craft; and Kristjana S. Williams, illustrator and graphic artist.

Intervention of Archbishop Angelo Vincenzo Zani

Question: what is the meaning, what are the motivations that led the Vatican Apostolic Library to undertake this project?

A fundamental task of the Vatican Apostolic Library, which explains its nature and constitutes its mission, is that of, on the one hand, “conserving the cultural treasures entrusted to it”, and on the other, promoting “study” and “knowledge” of them, to make the value of the extraordinary documents it conserves accessible to all.

And this is the specific task of the Vatican Apostolic Library from the times of Nicholas V – who founded it in 1451to those of Pius XI, up to the present. Pope Francis has emphasized the importance of preserving and “opening”.

This applies to all the fields of knowledge of which the Vatican Library conserves precious historical documents. On the entrance door to the Vatican Apostolic Library the various fields are listed for which every year thousands of researchers access it every year: philosophy, theology, law, art, natural sciences, music, astronomy, etc.

The project En route is situated within this framework: indeed, it proposes the restoration, cataloguing and digitalization of the collection of periodicals belonging to the diplomat and scholar from Biella, Cesare Poma (1962-1932), and to present his life and work through an exhibition that starting from that book collection and expanding to many others preserved in the Vatican Library, has brought out a series of travel, literary and factual, diplomatic and cultural, journalistic and political stories.

These stories are then entrusted to three internationally renowned creative figures, deeply rooted in the culture of our century.

The exhibition is physically located in the rooms of the Library used for this purpose, namely: the Kerkorian Exhibition Hall, the Sala Barberini and adjacent rooms.

Visitors, for this occasion, may also admire the historical spaces of the Vatican Apostolic Library, in particular the Salone Sistino.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank the partners of this exhibition:

- Intesa Sanpaolo, for their support for the exhibition and the loan of a work owned by their galleries of Italy: Alighiero Boetti’s Map of 1984, which intersects admirably with the themes of the exhibition, and which we have therefore placed as a reference work in the Salone Sistino.

- Sparkle, for their support for the exhibition, which they found interesting as it deals with connections.

- The Anawim Foundation, which has been supporting us for years now, sharing the spirit of curiosity and bibliophilia.

- A very special thanks goes to Maison Dior for supporting the cataloguing of the Poma Periodica collection and for supporting the exhibition.