Highlights from the cultural world of Rome
The death knell of St Peter's rang at 12 noon on Easter Monday, 21 April. Another chapter was thus added to papal history. The Roman Institute of the Görres Society, which was founded in 1888 and specialises in papal history, has seen 11 popes since Leo XIII.
Curia Bishop Cesare Pagazzi from Crema in northern Italy had been Secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education under Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonca for two years. He has now been appointed in place of Mons. Zani, who also came from the Congregation for Education, as archivist and librarian of the ‘Santa Romana Chiesa’. As such, he had to fulfil a variety of representative and diplomatic missions.
The Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani was founded on 21 March 1925 and later moved into the former Somasken monastery on the Aventine. To mark the centenary, a ceremony was held on 21 March at which a special stamp was presented by President Gaetano Platania and a large Latin inscription was unveiled. Massimiliano Ghilardi presented an extremely interesting exhibition on the history of the institute.
For the Holy Year 2025, the Ostia Antica Archaeological Park has published a booklet entitled ‘Itinerari cristiani alla foce del Tevere’, in which four ‘routes’ to the sites of early Christian Ostia and Porto are described on the basis of current archaeological research:
The internet portal kath.ch commemorates the Cardinal's 75th birthday on 15 March and the commemorative gift ‘Unity and Singleness’, which will be presented to him a week later at Campo Santo Teutonico.
Deadline: 21 March
From 16-22 June, the Netherlands Institute in Rome is hosting a summer school on the topic of ‘Schools in Transition: Situated learning, Discipline and Monasticism in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages’.
The third edition of the book on the Christian catacombs of Rome, edited by Vincenzo Fiocchi Nicolai, Fabrizio Bisconti and Danilo Mazzoleni in collaboration with the Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra and published by Schnell und Steiner, is now available in four languages. It will be presented at the German Archaeological Institute on 24 March.
On a trip to Rome organised by MYRIAM Tours in March, the Irish Hugh O'Flaherty Memorial Society visited many of the sites where the courageous priest O'Flaherty worked during his time in Rome, including the German cemetery, as he lived in the Priests' College from 1938 to 1947. All participants had already read the booklet published in English by Schnell und Steiner about his exciting life story and were well informed. The reason for the trip was the 100th anniversary of O'Flaherty's ordination to the priesthood.
Dr Andreas Rehberg (DHI) will give a lecture at 17.30 in the Casa delle Letterature (Piazza dell'Orologio, 3) on the topic: ‘In cerca di una nuova patria. Destini su ‘pietra’ dei germanici nella Roma del XV e del primo XVI secolo’. Rehberg draws heavily on examples from the Campo Santo Teutonico (and the indispensable edition by Albrecht Weiland).
For decades, the North American College (NAC) has been organising daily services at 7 a.m. during Lent in the various ancient churches of Rome. The Stations of the Cross have been part of the typical Roman liturgy since the early Middle Ages and were only removed from the missal during the liturgical reform. However, they still exist in Roman practice.
Römisches Institut der Görres-Gesellschaft
