Classical Art [antikvár]

The Papacy as Guardian ofthe Artistic Héritage Any book devoted to the classi-cal art in the Vatican must be-gin with a record of the crucial rôle played by the Papacy in the conservation of Rome's artistic patrimony. The setting up of the Vatican muséums between 1771 and 1821 constituted the highest point in a long process that had resulted in the establishment of a theory, législation and practice designed to protect and to conserve works of art. These ideas had been evolving in Italy jrom the seventeenth cen-tury onwards. In ail this the papal govern- WWW"!» ment was greatly in advance of its time. This is shown in the government's clarity of purpose; in its comprehensive analysis of the objects concerned; in its législation; and in its establishment of procédures and institutions designed both to conserve the works of art within the Papal States and to make them accessible to the public. During the fijieenth century the papacy regained temporal control of Rome, which had been lost during its residence at Avignon; it also recovered its spiritual authority, which had been gravely impaired by the Great Schism. After these ex-periences it pursued a consistent policy of founding its authority on both its own divine nature and on the historié traditions of the City itself: Impérial Rome become Christian. This remarkable episode in the history of the arts and ofcol-lecting reached its highest point in Rome in the first half of the seventeenth century. During the forty years covered by the ponti-ficates ofPaul V, Gregory V and Urban VIII, an immense num-ber of works of art was accu-mulated at Rome, collected or commissioned by the popes, by ecclesiastical dignitaries, by the great Roman families and by the religious orders. To these was added the inexhaustible supply of Roman antiquities and masterpieces ofclassical art which for some two hundred years had been regularly 3