The Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the Vatican Museum sign two agreements
Azerbaijan’s First Lady, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Mehriban Aliyeva gets acquainted with Pio Clementino Museum within the framework of her visit to Vatican, June 3.
Valuable samples of architecture related to the Antique and Renaissance periods are preserved at the museum. Located in the Belvedere Palace, the museum is included in the Vatican museums complex and is distinguished by universal richness in terms of the number of exhibits and historical significance. Primary objective being to preserve ancient Greek and Roman works of art, Popes Clement XIV and Pius VII have played a significant part in the creation of the museum.
The museum is comprised of a courtyard, an animals room, a statues gallery, the Rotonda room, the Greek cross room, the gallery of busts and other divisions. Antique statues related to the time of Pope Julius II are displayed in its courtyard. Restoration works were carried out here in 1775, following the instructions of Pope Pius VII. Among the valuable exhibits of the museum, statues such as “Laocoön and His Sons”, “Apollo Belvedere”, “Hermes” and others are considered to be art works of universal significance. There are statues of about 150 animals in the animals room. A number of famous sculptors and artists were involved in the restoration of these statues. Part of the exhibits in the hall - second to none in the world by the richness – accommodates copies of antique works preserved in Greece and Rome. Earlier, a summer pavilion of Pope Innocent VIII was located in the statues gallery. Over 100 works related to the Renaissance period have been gathered in the busts gallery of the museum.
After getting acquainted with the museum, a meeting took place between Mehriban Aliyeva and Archbishop Fernando Vergez Alzaga, the Secretary General of Vatican city’s Governorship.
Thanking Mehriban Aliyeva for the interest shown towards the museum, Fernando Verges Alzaga expressed confidence that collaboration between the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the Museum will be successful.
Underscoring the universal significance of each of the art samples being preserved at the Vatican Museum, Mehriban Aliyeva said the Foundation headed by her has taken close participation in preservation of samples of art of universal significance in a number of world countries, along with Azerbaijan.
Then two agreements were signed on restoration of Zeus’s statue at the Vatican Museum, and reconstruction of “Sistina” Hall by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.
At the end, they were photographed.
