Le Anime del Bernini

On the path of preparation for the Jubilee Year 2025, the Vatican Museums and the Embassy of Spain to the Holy See are proposing the joint exhibition project Le Anime del Bernini (The Souls of Bernini), which from 19 November will exceptionally display, in the rooms of the Vatican Art Gallery, two youthful sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini created in 1619: the Anima beata and the Anima dannata, owned by the Opera Pia-Stabilimenti Spagnoli in Italy and kept in 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 allow the public of the Pope's Museums to admire the two precious marble busts, which are usually not visible to the public, as an exception until 31 January 2025, thanks to the initiative and collaboration of H.E. the Ambassador of Spain to the Holy See, Mrs. 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 her 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, resorting to forms and methods that are often surprising or unpredictable.

The Vatican Museums, responding to Pope Francis' call to combine the spiritual dimension of the Holy Year with an itinerary of cultural enrichment, could not fail to inaugurate their special calendar of Events of Grace with an initiative directly involving the great Baroque director, now more than ever a protagonist in the Vatican, in the aftermath of the important and symbolic restoration of two of his masterpieces in St. Peter's Basilica: the Baldacchino and the Cattedra.