THE BARBERINI TAPESTRY WORKSHOP

THE RESURRECTION AND THE DEDICATION OF THE VATICAN BASILICA

Monday 30 March 2026, 18:00 Conference Hall, Vatican Museums

Speakers:

Sr. Raffaella Petrini, F.S.E. – President of the Governorate of Vatican City State

His Eminence Cardinal Mauro Gambetti – Archpriest of the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican

Don Mauro Mantovani, S.D.B. – Prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library

Barbara Jatta – Director of the Vatican Museums

Alessandra Rodolfo – Curator of the Department of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Art and
the Department of Tapestries and Textiles

PRESS RELEASE

Vatican City, 27 March 2026. Four centuries after the Dedication of Saint Peter’s Basilica (18 November 1626), this exhibition aims to celebrate that event as a founding moment of the Roman Church and of the Baroque art that served it. The tapestries from the Barberini Manufactory, Urban VIII Dedicates Saint Peter’s Basilica and The Resurrection of Christ – the latter evoking Holy Easter – are a testament to the only Roman manufactory capable of competing with the great foreign workshops, translating the liturgical and political solemnity of the pontificate of Urban VIII (1623–1644) into fabric. The exhibition is organized in synergy and close collaboration with the Vatican Apostolic Library and the Fabric of Saint Peter, and is on display in Rooms XVII and XVIII of the Vatican Pinacoteca.

“Although it was short-lived (1627–1679)”, explains Alessandra Rodolfo, Head of the Vatican Museums’ Department of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Art and the Department of Tapestries and Textiles and curator of the exhibition – “the Barberini tapestry workshop was a model of artistic excellence in Rome, capable of combining quality and innovation and of enhancing the city’s cultural and political standing in seventeenth-century Europe”.

The tapestry depicting the Resurrection of Christ, part of the series on the Life of Christ (1643–1656), is exhibited in Room XVII of the Pinacoteca. The work is accompanied by a reproduction of the preparatory cartoon used for the weaving, produced by the Viterbo-born painter Giovan Francesco Romanelli (now preserved in Palazzo Barberini). Meanwhile, Room XVIII houses Giovan Lorenzo Bernini’s bust of Urban VIII Barberini (1632-1633), on loan from the Vatican Apostolic Library. The bronze bust, originally located in the rooms of the Library of Palazzo Barberini, is displayed alongside the tapestry Urban VIII Dedicates Saint Peter’s Basilica, part of the Life of Urban VIII series (1663–1679). Also from the collections of the Vatican Apostolic Library, Department of the Numismatic Cabinet, are two medals by Gaspare Mola relating to the event.

The Fabric of Saint Peter has loaned a 1626 Diary of the Basilica, a rare document from the Archives of the Chapter of Saint Peter, which describes the Dedication ceremony.

“The works on display offer the opportunity to commemorate a moment of particular historical and symbolic significance”, comments the Director of the Vatican Museums Barbara Jatta, “aimed at reaffirming the site that houses the Confessio of the Apostle Peter as the visible foundation of the primacy of the Roman Church, which the three Vatican institutions—the Fabric of Saint Peter, the Vatican Apostolic Library and the Vatican Museums – have sought to celebrate together”.

“The Dedication or Consecration of Saint Peter’s Basilica”, adds Pietro Zander, Head of Artistic Heritage at the Fabric of Saint Peter, “was an event of great symbolic and ecclesiastical significance, celebrated by Pope Urban VIII Barberini on 18 November 1626 to mark the structural completion of the new building, the construction of which had lasted for more than a century: from the laying of the foundation stone on 18 April 1506 to the completion of the façade in 1612”.

To be followed by a visit to the exhibition in the Vatican Pinacoteca

Journalists and media operators who wish to participate must apply via the Holy See Press Office online accreditation system, at: press.vatican.va/accreditamenti.

All applications must be received no later than 24 hours before the event.

Info: stampa.musei@scv.va