What is it about?
In this article, I examine how objects from the “Orient” were incorporated, displayed, and reinterpreted within the Vatican Apostolic Palace during the Renaissance (ca. 1560–1630), drawing on largely unpublished primary sources. I reconstruct the contents and settings of the papal apartment, cabinets of curiosities and treasures, as well as the Vatican Library and the Holy See’s treasure in Castel Sant’Angelo. The study shows how artefacts and natural marvels from Asia—alongside objects from colonial America and Africa—were displayed and reframed within new visual and intellectual schemes that promoted the papacy’s Christian vision of an expanding global world. While the article focuses in particular on the reception of Japan and China, it also considers the place of the Ottoman Empire within these dynamics.
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Why is it important?
This is the first study to examine the nature, modes of conservation and display of non-Western artefacts in the Apostolic Palace during the early modern period—collections that have since been largely dispersed. It allows to identify and contextualize key objects, such as the gifts presented by the first Japanese embassies to the Holy See. Furthermore, it offers pathways for recovering this lost heritage that once crossed the oceans, and which remains significant for several communities today. More broadly, the article clarifies the role of Asian objects as cultural, political and spiritual mediators in the early modern West, and considers the implications of these processes for Western perceptions of Asia.
Perspectives
This article represents a critical first step toward recovering and rethinking these dematerialized early global histories, as well as retrieving meaningful lost heritages. Through this ongoing research, I also aim to contribute to a reassessment of early cultural and artistic interactions between East and West, papal Rome's engagement with the wider world, the formation of Orientalism, and the enduring significance of the Vatican’s ethnographic collections. I intend to further develop this research through collaborations with institutions and communities in both Eastern and Western contexts.
Dr. Éliane Roux
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Staging a Christian World and Shaping the “Orient(s)” in the Apostolic Palace (ca. 1560–1630), The Vatican Library Review, December 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/27728641-00402010.
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