A new Vatican exhibition is to showcase around a hundred documents from the Vatican Secret Archives.
The exhibition, entitled ‘Lux in Arcana - the Vatican Secret Archives
unveiled’, will be inaugurated next February in Rome’s Capitoline
Museums.
Cardinal Raffaele Farina, archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman
Church, said the exhibition would include pontifical documents of great
importance and letters relating to significant aspects of the life of
the Church in the world.
It will be the first time that many of the items have ever left the Vatican.
Some of the documents to go on display include Clement VII’s letter
to the English parliament in 1530 on Henry VIII’s request for the
annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the ‘Dictatus papae’
of Gregory VII outlining the powers of the pope, and the codex of
Galileo’s trial for heresy.
Bishop Sergio Pagano, prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives, said
the exhibition would offer the wider public their first chance to “enter
the reality" of the Vatican Secret Archives.
“Among the millions of documents held in the Vatican Secret Archives
we have chosen around 100 which illustrate the complexity of the overall
holdings,” he said.
“Modern technology will enable visitors to enter the Pope’s archive
and to understand the role it has played over the centuries at the
service of the Holy See and the world of culture, preserving and handing
down an enviable patrimony of knowledge.”