The Vatican Apostolic Library Meets Pietro Ruffo
–Vatican City, Vatican
Arising from the collaboration between the Roman artist Pietro Ruffo and the Vatican Apostolic Library, the exhibition winds its way through four sections. In the first part are four examples of celestial and terrestrial cartography according to Pietro Ruffo, while in the second one can admire three rare examples of cartography from among the treasures of the papal collection: a Chinese world map, an astronomical scroll from India, and five paper astrolabes from the sixteenth century.
Within the Exhibition Hall the real interaction between the artist and the Library’s collections occurs: there one can admire, side by side, many examples of how human beings have employed, and indeed still do employ, the principles of cartography to represent realities that have nothing to do with actual geography: dreams and utopias, inner feelings and movements, drawing from theological perspectives and making social criticisms.