Exhibition in Rome dedicated to Urban VIII and his pontificate

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Maffeo Barberini ’s election to the papal throne under the name Urban VIII in August 1623, the National Galleries of Ancient Art in Rome’s Palazzo Barberini venue is dedicating a massive exhibition to his twenty-one years of pontificate (1623-1644). Thus, from March 18 to July 30, 2023 the exhibition The Sovereign Image. Urban VIII and the Barberini, curated by Maurizia Cicconi, Flaminia Gennari Santori and Sebastian Schütze.

Together with his nephews, Cardinals Francesco and Antonio and Prince Taddeo Barberini, Urban VIII tenaciously pursued an ambitious political-cultural project that pervaded all areas of popular knowledge and belief. The exhibition aims to celebrate the cultural and political profile of the pope who, more than any other, had an extraordinary and radical impact on philosophical thought, scientific knowledge and the arts in the seventeenth century, with the goal of illustrating the ways in which the pontiff privileged the instrument of cultural hegemony as a function of political and governmental action.

Urban VIII gave an unmistakable stamp to his pontificate, promoting colossal feats such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini ’s St. Peter’s baldachin orPietro da Cortona’s fresco in the great hall of Palazzo Barberini. A new style, the Baroque, was imposed that had immediate spread not only in Rome and Italy, but throughout the entire European scene. Masterpieces from the Barberini collection, dismembered over the centuries and now conserved in the world’s major museums, therefore return to their original home; works by, among others, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Caravaggio, Valentin de Boulogne, Nicolas Poussin, Andrea Sacchi, and some of the spectacular tapestries produced by the Barberini Tapestry Workshop will be on view.

On display are more than eighty works from the museum’s collection and from more than 40 museum institutions and private Italian and international collections; to name a few: Gallerie degli Uffizi; Pinacoteca di Brera; Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte; Galleria Borghese, Vatican Museums, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, The British Museum, The National Gallery, Museo Nacional del Prado, Musée du Louvre; Albertina, and Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna; The J. Paul Getty Museum; Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art and: Saint Louis Art Museum.

Accompanying the exhibition is a catalog published by Officina Libraria. For all information visit the website of the National Galleries of Ancient Art.

Image: detail of the bust of Urban VIII executed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Exhibition in Rome dedicated to Urban VIII and his pontificate

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