Awesome Art: Our Lady of the Butterflies

H/T The Narthex

More about the image here 

Vatican Splendors: A Journey Through Faith and Art Part II - Piazza San Pietro

This is called The Square - Piazza San Pietro which is a spectacular creation by Bernini

From St. Peter's Basilica.org --

This monumental elliptical space, enclosed by 284 Doric columns four rows deep (196m wide and 148m long), is the masterpiece of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who laid it out during the pontificates of Alexander VII and of Clement IX.

Every Sunday at noon, people gather to recite the Angelus and receive the Pope's blessing from his window. A red porphyry stone on the northwest side of the square, marks the spot where Pope John Paul II was shot.

From: 'Seminarians Guide'
The piazza in front of St. Peter's was built by Bernini between 1657-1667. It was designed with the Feast of Corpus Christi especially in mind, which at the time was very popular and engendered massive public processions. Today it is used for solemn Masses and ceremonies; for canonizations; for the Pope's Sunday angelus, a devotion commemorating the Incarnation; and for the Pope's Wednesday audience, weather permitting.


From 'St. Peter's - Guide to the Basilica and Square'
Once the basilica had been built, it was felt that a space should be created in front of it with a capacity sufficient to contain the mass of people who would flock here to take part in the most solemn functions, especially on the occasion of the celebrations for the Feast of Corpus Christi which was then very popular and widely observed. It was Pope Alexander VII (1655-1667) who decided to build the square as we know it today - it had actually already been begun by Sixtus V when he had the obelisk moved there - and it was continued by various popes. In 1656, Alexander VII entrusted the direction of the work to Gian Lorenzo Bernini who completed it very rapidly, between 1657 and 1667.
St. Peter's Square has the shape of an immense ellipse (the visitor who stands in one of the two centers of this ellipse, marked by two white disks, one on each side of the obelisk, sees a single row of columns), 320 m. long and 240 m. wide, at its broadest point.


From 'St. Peter's Basilica - A Virtual Tour' by Our Sunday Visitor
Before mentioning, however, the methods used and the time taken to construct this building, which replaced an older early Christian Basilica dating from the time of Constantine, and before beginning a guided tour of the temple of Christianity, it is worth stopping to look in more detail at the square, for which Bernini designed, as his drawings show, an arrangement different and contrasting to the present one, with a third section of colonnade in place of the so-called "Spina di Borgo."


The entrance to the square, through two lateral passages at the sides of this colonnade, would have produced a greater stage-setting effect, but at the same time, would have exalted the feeling of awe and meditation in the believers, who would have felt themselves to be welcomed into the arms of the Christian Church, as ideally visualized in Bernini's famous drawing where the church is the head and the colonnades are the open arms of a human figure.


This is an effect which is still possible simply by superimposing, at the entrance to the square, a hypothetical colonnade to produce the spectacular result which Bernini pursued, obscuring the view of the façade from the distance, but not of the dome rising above it.
In reality, the solution chosen by this absolute protagonist of Roman art in the 1600s, whose career was so closely linked to the commissions he was given in the Basilica, was ingenious but at the same time lucidly rational.


In his design for the very vast surface of the square, which at that time may have appeared to be overlarge, Bernini abandoned Bramante's project envisaging four straight arcades arranged to form a square, adopting an oval shape which, however, was not favorably viewed by Alexander VII. The Pope, in fact, judged it to be "not particularly in harmony with the design of the façade" and additionally, rather costly already in the planning phase.
Yet with this solution, placing two arcs of a circle beside a rectangular space, Bernini achieved the striking and amplifying effects of an elliptic plan; that is the impression of a space larger than it actually is by dynamic articulation of the square, stretched by its two lateral containing structures.


At the same time, he knew how to avoid the risks which this elliptic solution might present from the perspective point of view, by aligning two centers (not focal points) on a very long axis passing through the central obelisk. In this way, he was able to maintain the columns equidistant from one another and then, by gradually increasing the diameter of the columns, so that those in the internal row are the most slender and the external ones are the thickest, he was also able to maintain an equal distance between the intercolumniations.
Hence, if we stand on one of the two disks at the side of the obelisk, the columns appear as one row and not four in all parts of the semicircles. This is both a technical and an artistic device, which permits anyone moving around the square to enjoy the effects of a lively theatrical spectacle, but also of control of the immense space; it is a grandiose solution but at the same time is on a human scale.


With this creation, balanced between his effervescent imagination and his never denied classical vein, which here is inspired by the simplest of the ancient Greek styles, the Doric order, Bernini was able to offer Christianity its ideal epicenter.
In modern times, the function of this epicenter has been confirmed even without any special events, by the Pope's Sunday message, instituted by Pius XII and continued by his successors, with a simple but vibrantly human and spiritual contact between the Shepherd of Men and the always numerous crowd gathered in the square.
Lastly, it must be remembered that Bernini, in the final layout of the square, had to respect various differing and contrasting requirements. First and foremost was the view of the dome the soaring vertical lines of which, with the building of the façade, had been considerably diminished, at least for anyone standing in the space directly in front of the Basilica, still far from achieving the harmonious layout it was to have.

Sculpture of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Unveiled at Ave Maria University

From NaplesNews 

Two Ave Maria students sing during the unveiling of the Annunciation sculpture on the face of the Oratory. After three years of planning and hundreds of hours of sculpting by artist Marton Varo, Ave Maria University's Oratory revealed it's new facade to hundreds of people on March 25, 2011. The project from inception to fruition took nearly 3 years and more than 3 million dollars to achieve. It is the first project to be undertaken by the Ave Maria Foundation for the arts completely funded by private donations. The relief depicts the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 120 tons of Carrara marble hand selected from Cava Michelangelo, the same quarry Michelangelo used to acquire his marble for his most important works. Once the project began Marton made several trips back and forth from Italy to Ave Maria carving portions of the relief in both places. The smaller five pieces were carved in Italy while the larger stones measuring 210 cm x 230 cm were carved at Ave Maria, making the largest blocks almost 7 1/2 feet tall. Manuel Martinez/Staff

Raphael Tapestries: From the Vatican to the Banks of the Thames

Raphael Tapestries in London for Pope's Visit

From TheTapestryHouse:

Only seven of the ten original Cartoons, produced by Raphael, for the Sistine Chapel Tapestries, survive today. The Raphael Tapestries, as they have since become known, were created during the High Renaissance, and were commissioned, around 1515, by Pope Leo X. It is believed that the Raphael Tapestries were completed one year later, towards the end of 1516. This is because a final payment was recorded, made to Raphael, on December 20th, of that year. The Raphael Tapestries were first displayed in the Sistine Chapel, during the Christmas celebrations of 1519. It should be remembered, even though Raphael had completed the Cartoons for the Tapestries, they still had to be woven!

Today, the only surviving, drawn to scale, full size Cartoons, of the Raphael Tapestries, are on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, situated in London, England. The Raphael Tapestries were only hung, in the Sistine Chapel, during important ceremonies. However, they were pillaged, just over ten years later, during the ‘Sack of Rome’, which occurred on May 6th, 1527. It is believed that the original Raphael Tapestries were burned, to retrieve the precious metals, usually woven into Tapestries of this caliber. Or, the Tapestries were cut into pieces and dispersed around Europe. There is a great possibility that both are true. It was customary, during these times, for the Victor to confiscate the Tapestries of the defeated party, and cut them down.

The Raphael Tapestries depicted scenes from the Gospels. Specifically, the Life of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, as described in the Acts of the Apostles. Four, of the ten original, Raphael Tapestries were dedicated to the Life of Saint Peter. The four Tapestries were, “The Death of Ananias”, “The Miraculous Draught of Fishes”, “The Handing Over of the Keys” and “The Healing of the Lame Man”. The six remaining Raphael Tapestries were dedicated to the life of Saint Paul; “The Conversion of Saint Paul”, “Saint Paul in Prison”, “Saint Paul Preaching in Athens”, “The Blinding of Elymas, the Sorcerer”, “The Sacrifices in Lystra” and “The Stoning of Saint Peter”.