From 25 February until 16 May 2023, the altarpiece by Ugo da Carpi, with Veronica unfolding the veil of the Holy Face between Apostles Peter and Paul, was on display at the Museum of Saint Peter’s Basilica. The exhibition, which had already had a previous edition in Turin, was open to the public in the exhibition spaces of the Vatican sacristy every day during the opening hours of the Basilica. “It was a small exhibition, but of great importance for faith and art”, explained Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of the Vatican Basilica, “which we wanted to present during this time of Lent to offer pilgrims and visitors an opportunity for reflection and encounter: the image of the relic of the Holy Face kept in Saint Peter’s is, in fact, an invitation to prayer and a strong reminder of the Vatican Basilica, a place of welcome for the women and men who come from all over the world to the tomb of the Apostle Peter”.
At the centre of the Vatican exhibition is the panel painting by Ugo da Carpi, produced on the eve of the 1525 Jubilee for the Altar of the Holy Face in the ancient basilica: an altarpiece “made without a paintbrush”, as the painter wrote next to his signature, and as reported by Giorgio Vasari, who saw it along with Michelangelo.
Through a series of explanatory panels, the visitor can understand, in this exhibition, the extraordinary relevance of this artwork, which we see in a greatly altered state due to its troubled conservation history over the course of almost five centuries. Therefore, the sixteenth-century panel is displayed next to a life-size “study copy” in which the now-lost colours and original chiaroscuro have been recreated. An “eloquent” copy produced with the support of the Turin Museums Foundation by Professor Lorenza D’Alessandro for the exhibition in Turin and shared with Saint Peter’s Basilica on the occasion of this exhibition.
The Civic Museum of Ancient Art of Palazzo Madama also provided the exhibition panels describing the altarpiece of the Holy Face and narrating its history, production technique, state of conservation and the important diagnostic procedures carried out in collaboration with the Vatican Museums Scientific Research Laboratories.