Vatican Apostolic Library launches new initiatives for the 2025 Jubilee Year

To mark the Holy Year of 2025, the Vatican’s Apostolic Library has planned four initiatives of major cultural significance, which will run for the entire duration of the Jubilee.

The first initiative, entitled "Open Words - Jubilee Lexicon for our time", will consist of eight meetings, to foster personal reflection, through the rediscovery of the centuries-old heritage of the Apostolic Library. During the meetings, promoted in collaboration with the Antonio Rosmini Institute of Culture and Education (IS.CU.F.A.R), participants will meditate on eight words linked to the Message of Pope Francis in the Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee. Each word, the organizers emphasize, will be analyzed during the meeting/conference by an expert speaker chosen from among specialists in various disciplines. This will be followed by the reading of a selection of passages chosen from texts kept in the Library on the chosen theme, by experts from Italy and other countries, with the accompaniment of a musical background. The events, which will be free and by invitation, will be hosted in the Sistine Hall of the Library and will take place on the following dates: December 13, 2024 (visions), February 14 2025 (journey), March 14 2025 (silence), May 9 2025 (Word), June 13 2025 (intelligence), October 10 2025 (charity), November 21 2025 (humanism) and December 12, 2025 (hope).

To celebrate the Holy Year dedicated to the theme “Pilgrims of Hope”, the Vatican Library will also mint a special “2025 Jubilee Coin”, reproducing the shape of one of the approximately 2000 coins found around the tomb of St. Peter during the excavations promoted by Pope Pius XII between 1939 and 1949. The coin in question, a “picciolo” (denarius parvus) from the Rome mint with the imprint of the Holy Face from Veronica’s veil on one side, was issued during the Jubilee of 1450, which had been declared by Pope Nicholas V. The object represents the offering left to St. Peter by a pilgrim of hope, probably an inhabitant of the city of Rome itself, during that historic Jubilee year which is remembered for being one of the best-attended in history. The "2025 Jubilee Coin" will be presented inside a laminate reproduction of the Trophy of Gaius, the aedicule which, as far back as around 200 AD indicated to the first pilgrims the exact location of the tomb of Saint Peter. The aedicule is now enclosed in the "niche of the Pallia" under the High Altar of St Peter’s Basilica.

Finally, to mark the Jubilee Year, the Vatican Library will organize a major exhibition entitled "En route", which carries forward its program of dialogue with contemporary artists – an annual tradition which has been on-going since 2021. The chosen theme for the Holy Year is that of “world tours”, which, following the publication Jules Verne’s imaginary tour, began to multiply during the last decades of the 19th century, largely due to the possibilities offered by new means of transport. The exhibition will illustrate the travels of the Italian diplomat Cesare Poma (1862-1932), from whose legacy the Vatican Museums received an important collection of newspapers from the most remote parts of the world, printed in many languages, with interesting examples of combinations between different languages ​​and alphabets. These will be on display for the first time. A second theme will be that of the journey made by the two French journalists Lucien Leroy and Henri Papillaud, who between 1895 and 1897 embarked on the world tour “without a penny”, supporting themselves through the publication and sale of a kind of travel journal, which they printed as they travelled. Finally, the exhibition celebrate six women who, either for sport, or to pursue a new form of journalism or for other differing cultural reasons, set out on a world tour on their own, challenging the prejudices and clichés of their time: the women in question are Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland, Annie Londonderry, Gertrude Bell, Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson. Three prestigious contemporary artists will participate simultaneously in the narration of these journeys. The exhibition will last a whole year, from January to December 2025, and can be visited, mainly on Saturdays during the Holy Year, by booking online.