Notes and Comments

Exhibitions

Until October 2010 the exhibition "Everybody Welcome, Everything Free" is on display in Rome's Capitoline Museum. The title refers to the motto adopted by the Knights of Columbus for their centers in Europe during World Wars I and II. In 1920, Pope Benedict XV invited the Knights to provide services in the Eternal City. They built a series of playgrounds open to all without fee. One in the San Lorenzo neighborhood was damaged by Allied bombing in 1943, but some are still functioning to this day. The Knights went on to sponsor restorations of various statues, roofs, and tombs of St. Peter's Basilica and to microfilm codices in the Vatican Library. One of the largest items in the exhibition is the Graham-Paige limousine presented to Pope Pius XI in 1929 by the Graham brothers, who were Knights. It became the favorite car of Pius XII and had logged over 30,000 miles before its retirement.

The Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology has presented to the public the completed restoration of the oldest known paintings of Ss. Peter, Paul, Andrew, and John recently discovered under a crust of calcium carbonate in the Catacombs of St. Thecla in Rome.

The Galileo Museum of Florence, dedicated to the history of science, has exhibited three fingers and a molar of Galileo Galilei. These relics were identified after their purchase at the Pandolfini auction house in Florence by Candida Bruschi. In 1737, the historian and naturalist Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti had removed these items with a knife from the cadaver of Galileo when it was reburied with a Freemasonic rite in the church of Santa Croce.

Anniversary Celebration

At the end of July on Chapel Island and on Lennox Island, Nova Scotia, the 400th anniversary of the baptism of Grand Chief Henri Membertou of the Mi'kmaq Nation and of twenty other members of his family was celebrated with Masses and powwows. On June 24, 1610, they became the first aboriginals of French North America to become Christian. Celebrations a month earlier were held in Annapolis Royal and in Halifax Commons, Halifax, Nova Scotia. When the British expelled the French from this region, the Holy See in 1752 negotiated a treaty that allowed a French priest to continue to provide pastoral care to the Mi'kmaq.

Research Centers and Tools

Restoration work on the interior of the Vatican Library has been completed on schedule so that the library reopened on September 20. Among the improvements are new entries in the online catalog of manuscripts and bibliographical entries related to them. A Wi-Fi connection to the library's internal network allows readers to use their personal computers to consult the catalogs and other databases and to order from the Manuscript Reading Room items for consultation. Readers need to obtain new user permits from the Admissions Office that contain RFID microchips that identify them at the distribution desk and open an assigned locker.

Villanova University has announced the completion of a two-year project that provides a virtual tour of four churches in Rome. By taking several thousand digital photographs that were digitally stitched together, the team has created 360-degree images that can be enlarged and rotated, providing a virtual panorama in a three-dimensional projection. For St. Peter's Basilica, see http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san pietro/vr tour/index-en.html; for the Sistine Chapel, see http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistinevr/index.html; for St. John Lateran, see http://www.vatican.va/various /basiliche/san giovanni/vr tour/Media/VR/Lateran Nave1/index.html; and for St. Paul's Outside the Walls, see http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san paolo/vr tour/index-it.html.

Iuris canonici medii aevi consociatio (ICMAC)/International Society of Medieval Canon Law (http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/medieval/icmac/index.html) has announced its new Web site. Although the Web site is still in its infancy, it will post notices of conferences, symposia, grants and bursaries, publications, as well as issues of the electronic...