Here's the Vatican piece:
The Lives of the Popes
'Saint Peter and the Vatican' chronicles 2,000 years of history, and bringing it to San Diego was a massive undertaking
By Chris Nixon
FOR THE UNION-TRIBUNE
May 13, 2004
Approximately 3 feet high and 5 feet long, the rectangular wooden crate, painted blue, seemed unimportant – then Monsignor Roberto Zagnoli began pulling priceless artifacts from it.
The largely ceremonial uncrating of "Saint Peter and the Vatican: The Legacy of the Popes" only hinted at the hard work, political maneuvering and careful planning done behind the scenes to bring this exhibit to life at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park.
The simple crate belied its extravagant contents and the request for vigilance seemed an understatement: 391 works of art, insured for $60 million, traveled thousands of miles from Italy to San Diego – the exhibit's only West Coast stop.
Once installed, the exhibition's quiet beauty can say little about the thousands of hours invested by the museum to bring the Vatican's largest exhibit to ever tour North America here.
The 15,000-square-foot exhibition follows the Catholic popes' roles through 2,000 years of European history, from St. Peter through Pope John Paul II, in the gathering of these religious icons.
Following the uncrating and press conference last week, Zagnoli, a curator at the Vatican Museums and the man chiefly responsible for exhibit in San Diego, sat outdoors at the museum's Waters Cafe and explained the motivation behind mounting an unprecedented exhibition of this size.
"We tried to address two characteristics or answer two questions," said Zagnoli through Italian interpreter Elizabeth Hiel. "First, we tried to respond to people who think that the Vatican is a mysterious place. We wanted to open the doors of the Vatican and show people inside the Vatican through this exhibition.
"The second thing was to show the intentions of the pope throughout the centuries and to focus on this aspect of dialogue: the dialogue between humankind and culture, the dialogue of the church with itself, the dialogue of the church with other religions, the dialogue of the church with other cultures and finally, the dialogue between the church and the modern era.
"This is how the exhibition is broken up thematically. You basically follow the life of a pope."
How does an exhibition of this scale make its way from the Vatican to North America and back again, safe and sound?
First, the Vatican had to decide on which items would be making the trip to America, a process that sounds rather bureaucratic at its best.
"We gave a list of works of art to the (Vatican's) secretary of state," said Zagnoli. "Then, we had to talk with the different entities within the Vatican, because the Vatican isn't just one big entity. There are different jurisdictions within the Vatican. We had to discuss with all these heads of the different jurisdictions regarding which items should be included in the exhibition.
"This doesn't mean we were fighting," said Zagnoli with a smile. "It's just a part of the dialogue going on within the Vatican."
Once the necessary discussions were resolved, the objects were flown from Italy to the United States in 106 wooden crates. Each crate holds multiple items; the artifacts are packed with foam, reinforced with an inner crate and surrounded by another layer of foam.
From the first exhibition spot in Houston, and then on to the other museums schedule to host the exhibition in the States, the objects travel by ground transportation. After stops at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art and the Cincinnati Museum Center, the exhibit reaches San Diego via 15 trailer trucks, each 53-feet long.
In each city, a lengthy installation process is needed to set up the thematic environments. In San Diego, the installation will ultimately take three weeks according to Jeffrey Wyatt, vice president of production for Clear Channel Exhibitions and the person responsible for the design, setup and breakdown of the exhibit in each city.
Installing all of the objects, building environments and focusing the lighting takes a staff of about 30 craftsmen, scenic painters and lighting technicians.
"Every time the objects travel, we have to look at every object, check it out and document its condition," said Wyatt during the San Diego setup. "At the same time, we're putting together all these cases, over 100 cases and moving all these environments and walls and theaters in a short amount of time. It's quite an operation."
According to Wyatt, approximately 500,000 people have seen the exhibit already in Fort Lauderdale, Houston and Cincinnati. He expects 250,000 more to visit the San Diego Museum of Art installation, its last stop. At $18 a person – although some discounts are being offered – that's a lot of money.
"Generally, earned income (earned income is defined by admissions, door sales, general membership, fees for classes and lectures) accounts for approximately 30 percent of our (annual) revenue," said Heath Fox, the museum's acting executive director. "For this exhibition, we should make what we would with any reasonably successful summer exhibition. There will be no windfall.
"Revenues from this exhibition will be used to support future exhibitions and education programs, and allow us to continue to provide high-quality programming for the community."
Fox, however, would not say how the revenues from the show will be divided between the three presenting entities – the Vatican, Clear Channel and the museum.
"An exhibition of this size, with nearly 400 objects, coming from as far away as Rome, and requiring the high level of care necessary for the number of historical objects it contains, is expensive," he said. "Special ticket prices are applied in order to make it possible to bring this exhibition to our Southern California audiences."
Dealing with an exhibition consisting of irreplaceable religious icons, the final and maybe most important aspect of "Saint Peter and the Vatican" remains security.
"Contractually, (Clear Channel was) obliged to take certain measures," said Wyatt, a San Diego native who now lives in San Antonio, Texas. "It comes down to the object's security, involving alarms, cameras, etc. The museums we chose have a record for high security and no losses.
"The other aspect was climate. The museums we chose also had very good climate-control systems, controlling not only temperature but also humidity. We had to put those in the plan for the Vatican. There is a multilayer security plan to insure the safety of the objects."
Steven Kern, San Diego Museum of Art curator of European art, added his perspective on the museum's ability to handle a large-scale exhibition such as "Saint Peter and the Vatican."
"This exhibition receives the exact same attention that all of our other exhibitions, as well as pieces in our permanent collection, receive," said Kern. "We don't differentiate between something that's worth $10 or something that's worth $10 million. All of these are priceless objects.
"Nothing that we deal with on a daily basis can be replaced, at least that's my approach as a curator. .. . Each one of these objects shouldn't be looked at for any type of financial value, but for their cultural and historical importance and the stories they can tell."
In it's final sojourn before heading back to Italy, "Saint Peter and the Vatican" will touch many people: art connoisseurs, European history enthusiasts and, especially, religious folks who may never get a chance to go see these pieces in Italy at the Vatican.
"There has been a desire by John Paul II as a pope to let people appreciate the Vatican's artifacts, understand them and learn more about the history," said Wyatt, summarizing both the impetus and the public's reaction to the exhibition. "For Christians and non-Christians alike, this is history that is important and these are objects that are talking about that history.
"For Catholics, it's about learning about their history and growing closer to their faith. For non-Catholics, you can look at the art for art's sake and also the tremendous historical value."
Chris Nixon is a San Diego writer.
