L.A. Showing of Vatican Art Gives ‘Intimate’ View of Papacy

While Pope John Paul II’s razzle-dazzle road show whisked in and out of town, a collection of rare art billed as “an intimate look at the Vatican” was quietly exhibited at the Forest Lawn Museum, where it will be on display through the end of the year.

The Vatican Memorial Series by Vernon Howe Bailey, shown publicly for the first time in 40 years, is worlds away from the almost circus-like atmosphere of the recent papal visit.

The handful of visitors who wander through the quiet galleries each day get to peer inside the Roman Catholic papacy and see its eerie grandeur, its cloistered wealth and the surprisingly exotic tastes of its successive rulers.

These 40 paintings, most depicting interior halls and apartments, were done by Bailey, an American artist, over a two-year period at the church’s invitation.

In 1932, fresh from a successful show of his New York skyscraper lithographs, Bailey was approached by Vatican officials with an unprecedented proposal: unlimited access to the Vatican’s 11,000 rooms, including the Pope’s private apartments, to record its art and architecture in oils, ink and charcoal.

The product was a string of odd canvas gems, most in brilliant colors, that capture much of the Vatican’s aura and something of its inner life. Landmark settings--the Sistine Chapel, the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Balcony of the Benedictions where the Pope blesses the faithful in St. Peter’s Square--hang next to treasure rooms that the public probably has never heard of, much less seen. These include:

- The Pinacoteca, an 18th-Century pink brick museum built for the sole purpose of housing Pope Pius VI’s personal art collection, which included many of the artist Raphael’s masterpieces.

- The Melozzo Room and its central fresco of “Pope Sixtus IV and his nephew, a cardinal who later became the glorious and terrible Pope Julius II,” according to the exhibit catalogue.

- The Hall of the Greek Cross, home to a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures that once decorated “the palace that Pope Innocent VIII used as a summer residence.” The summer palace was later transformed into a museum and remodeled to copy the Pantheon of Agrippina.

- The Egyptian Museum, “designed to create an impression of an Egyptian temple at night,” where bronze sphinxes and stone lions repose against salmon-pink walls under a midnight-blue ceiling.

- The Etruscan Museum, with its array of plunder from Etruscan tombs in central Italy, featuring chariots, shields, gold ornaments and pottery.

Many of Bailey’s paintings depict rooms where historical significance rivals the value of the artworks.

The Hall of the Four Winds was the site of a 1582 scientific convocation called by Pope Gregory XIII to reform the calendar; the result, the 12-month Gregorian Calendar, is still in use today.

The Gallery of Maps is an endless corridor lined with wall-sized maps of the countries of the Holy Roman Empire. The Hall of Muses boasts 18 floor-to-ceiling stone pillars taken from the villa of the Roman Emperor Hadrian.

“I like the way Bailey captures the sheen on the marble,” said Margaret Burton, curator of the Forest Lawn Museum. “And the lighting and the colors are just beautiful.”

Burton’s personal favorite is the painting of the Clementine Hall, the majestic chamber where the Pope receives visiting heads-of-state and where the Vatican’s Swiss Guard is posted round-the-clock.

“Paintings like this are especially interesting,” she said, “because these are apartments that the general public never gets to see.”

Forest Lawn did not intentionally schedule the Vatican exhibition to coincide with the papal visit, Burton said. The show was first conceived two years ago, she recalled, when the University of San Diego, which was bequeathed the series upon Bailey’s death, contacted her to offer the loan.

The collection will probably remain on display longer than originally planned, said Burton, because the public response has been very enthusiastic.

“A lot of people come in who have been to the Vatican themselves,” she said, “and, when they see these paintings, they all have their own little stories about what happened when they were there.”