Highlights from the cultural world of Rome
The city map of Rome by Giovan Battista Nolli from 1748 - it hangs on the first floor of the German Archaeological Institute - shows the Campo Santo Teutonico differently than it is today. At no. 1272 you can see the former oratory, which was located where Pope Benedict XVI's auditorium is today and where the Görres Lectures take place.
Prof. Dr. Johannes Grohe, Vice-Director of the RIGG, will celebrate his 70th birthday in a month's time and return to Germany from Rome in the autumn after 27 years of beneficial work as Professor of Medieval Church History at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce.
The German Archaeological Institute in Rome, which has continued its operations in various emergency shelters over the past 10 years, has recently been able to move back into its old headquarters in Via Sardegna in the Ludovisi district. The opening ceremony took place on 6 February.
The canon lawyer Dr Matthias Ambros from the diocese of Passau, member of the RIGG and lecturer at the Gregoriana, is the new Undersecretary in the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See. He works under the Portuguese Cardinal Mendonca de Tolentino, who is currently carrying out the reorganisation of the papal academic institutions.
Dott. Pietro Zander from the St. Peter's Cathedral Building Workshop, who knows more about the current and historical history of St. Peter's Basilica than anyone else, will give a lecture on 27 January at 5 pm at the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology on the topic of "Nuova luce sulla necropoli vaticana sotto San Pietro. I restauri recenti".
There is no end to the celebrations in Rome. On 22-23 January, a conference will be held in the Vatican Museums to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of Ercole Consalvi (1757-1824). It is being organised by the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, which is now under the direction of Marek Inglot SJ.
The Pontifical Institute for Sacred Music is joining in the jubilee culture: on the occasion of Max Reger's 150th birthday, organ concerts will be held in the Sala Accademica in Piazza Navona (Piazza S. Agostino 20a) on 12, 19 and 26 January and on 2 February under the patronage of the German Embassy to the Holy See. Father Robert Mehlhart OP has been the director of the institute since last year.
When the Confraternity of Santa Maria della Pietà built a church on the Campo Santo Teutonico, which was enormous by the standards of the time, just 50 years after it was founded and consecrated it in 1500, it could not have known that this church would still occupy art historians 500 years later.
Stefan von Kempis begins his report on the impressive Christmas concert by the Venice Symphony Orchestra organised by the Vatican Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI Foundation with the words: "It was almost like old times: A concert in honour of Benedict XVI took place in the church of the "Campo Santo Teutonico" at the Vatican on Wednesday evening".
The Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology is offering its books at a discount for Christmas..
Römisches Institut der Görres-Gesellschaft
