Vatican City, 16 October, 2024 / 1:40 pm (ACI Africa).
The Vatican Museums this week unveiled one of its most celebrated acquisitions, the “Apollo Belvedere,” after years of intensive restoration work by Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums (PAVM) on the ancient marble statue.
Following the discovery of the statue in Rome in 1489, Pope Julius II requested the Apollo Belvedere to be brought to the Vatican in the early 16th century to be part of a papal collection known as the Courtyard of Statues in Belvedere, which highlighted the mythical origins of ancient Rome.
Monsignor Terence Hogan, PAVM coordinator and a priest of the Archdiocese of Miami, said the restoration of Apollo Belvedere is “significant because it gives us an insight into the early history of Rome” before the rise of Christianity.
“It gives us an insight into culture and also faith and history,” Hogan said in an interview with EWTN News. “We [the Vatican Museums] are the oldest museum in the world and so people from all around the world now can appreciate the faith, the art, the history, the culture of so many centuries.”
