Precious Antiquities

"From 2 October 2013 to 4 January 2014, for the first time in over two hundred years, an exhibition will bring back to life in the Vatican the charm of the eighteenth-century collections of the Profane Museums at the time of Pius VI, before the Napoleonic requisitions. It offers a unique opportunity to see reunited, in their original museum context, works previously exhibited in the Museum and now conserved in prestigious international cultural institutions. The exhibition will open simultaneously with the new display of the historical collections of the Profane Museum. The Profane Museum, the original nucleus of the collections of profane antiquities in the future complex of the Vatican Museums, was created by Clement XIII (Rezzonico, 1758-1769) and enriched with further collections and furnishings under Pius VI (Braschi, 1775-1799). The conclusion of this demanding restoration project, which involved the entire collection and its context, is an opportunity to imagine a momentary "homecoming" of a nucleus of antique gems and cameos, mounted in elaborate Neoclassical settings at the end of the eighteenth century, and a valuable numismatic collection of Greek, Etruscan and Roman exe