Highlights from the cultural world of Rome
The Libreria La Leoniana near St Peter's Square has the book ‘Altar and Church: Principles of Liturgy from Early Christianity’ in its display. The new manager offers discounts to Görres members and also specifically advertises her customers' books. She also draws attention to out-of-the-way publications, such as the mosaic book by Veronika Seifert.
A marvellous photograph of Paul Maria Baumgarten has been preserved, showing him in the vestments of Pius IX. It was first published in the Römische Quartalschrift by Isa-Maria Betz (RQ 2013, 236). Baumgarten's notes now reveal what this was all about.
For centuries, the Madonna Santissima di Belriguardo was venerated in the church of the Archconfraternity Santa Maria della Pietà on Campo Santo Teutonico: Our Lady with the beautiful gaze. An altar was erected to her in a separate chapel. The Piedmontese, who venerated this Madonna, took care of the image's decoration for a long time.
At the beginning of 1881, the archive room set up by Cardinal Joseph Hergenröther was opened to the scholarly public. It is located in the wing of the building by the Torre dei Venti on the side of the Vatican Gardens. The sloping terrain of the Vatican Hill from the gardens to the east gives the room its special ambience.
Some popes are at war with animals and consider pets to be a sign of decadence, while they welcome animals on their plates. Leo XIII still hunted birds in the Vatican gardens - for lunch. St Francis called all living creatures his sisters and brothers. In more recent times, Benedict XVI, who famously had a pet cat, followed in this tradition of loving animals.
Every year, the Foundation Meeting Centre Archdiocese of Munich and Freising organises a May devotion accompanied by music and followed by a snack in the garden of the Archdiocese's Casa Santa Maria in Viale delle Medaglie d'Oro in Rome.
In April 2023, the writer and novelist Martin Mosebach gave a public lecture at the RIGG about "his Rome". If you missed it back then, you can listen to a similar lecture by Mosebach in the Tele-Academy (2018):
The international bookshop "La Leoniana" near the Vatican has reopened under the management of Chiara Proietti. It's worth popping in and having a chat with her. The RIGG is planning to enter into a co-operation with the Leoniana. We will inform you about this soon.
by Nikolas Möller
In 312 AD, Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. It was probably on this occasion that a seated statue originally depicting Jupiter Optimus Maximus was remodelled for the new autocrat. Fragments of this colossal statue can be seen in the courtyard of the Capitoline Museums.
Prof Dr Andreas Bieringer (Liturgy) and Prof Dr Thomas Meckel (Canon Law) from the Theol. Hochschule Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt a.M. organised an excursion to Rome in March with their students under the theme "City of Grace - City of Law", during which they visited Vatican dicasteries and also listened to art and liturgical history lectures on the important church monuments of the Lateran district (including S. Clemente and Quattro Coronati) and the Esquiline under the guidance of Andreas Raub and Stefan Heid.
Römisches Institut der Görres-Gesellschaft
