A gigantic black and white wave laps the sixteenth-century facade of the Vatican Apostolic Library: a reminder of the vulnerability of knowledge, memory, and life. It is the Diluvium by the French artist JR, the monumental installation that welcomes visitors at the entrance of the new exhibition of the Vatican Apostolic Library, “AQVA – Catastrophe and Wonder”, inaugurated today by Pope Leo XIV on his 71st birthday and part of a broader project realized in collaboration with Fondazione Roma and supported by Intesa Sanpaolo.
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A photo provided by the Vatican Media Press Office shows Pope Leo during the visit to the Vatican Apostolic Archive and the Vatican Apostolic Library on the occasion of the inauguration of the “AQVA” exhibition. Vatican City, September 14, 2026, ANSA / Photo provided by the Vatican Press Office SIGNATURE: 111 AUTHOR: Vatican Media Press Office
The Ambivalence of the Enemies of Books
It starts with water, a central theme in the context of the global climate crisis, the refined journey promoted by the Library among the threats that have always endangered the book heritage: in the coming years there will be fire, light, insects, and human intervention. All “catastrophe and wonder,” as the five-year exhibition cycle is titled; all natural elements that swim in ambivalence, because they can generate life but also destroy it; all universal allegories of human anxieties in the face of what escapes their control.
Pope Leo XIV, center, waves as he arrives with Bishop Giacomo Cardinali, vice prefect of the Vatican Library, fifth from left, Prefect of the Papal Household, Archbishop Petar Rajič, first at left, and President of the Pontifical Commission and Governorate of Vatican City State sister Raffaella Petrini, second from right, at the Vatican Library, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, during a press preview of the exhibit “AQVA,” which will be open to the public from Sept. 25 through May 14, 2027. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) Associate Press/ LaPresse Only Italy and Spain
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Room for the “Reconciliation Gates”
The Library has now accustomed the public to the contamination between its centuries-old heritage and the liveliest expressions of contemporaneity. “It testifies to the ancient and new cultural openness of the Church,” said the Pontiff, celebrating the value of “cultural cordiality” represented by the “gentle diplomacy that finds among the documents and books of the Vatican Archive and Library an open path, one of the ‘reconciliation gates’ mentioned in the Encyclical Magnifica humanitas. So, forward! Faithful to the past and faithful to the future, with the languages and means that are proper to you, find new reconciliation gates.”
The Letterfishes by Bill Moran
The Contamination Between Ancient and Modern
Gates, at the exhibition, open continuously. Also in this case, as in past years, from the scientific and symbolic heart of the exhibition – the Aquatilium animalium historia by Ippolito Salviani, a masterpiece from 1557 that combines scientific knowledge, copperplate art, and gastronomic culture and which stands at the center of the room in two extraordinarily valuable copies – radiate the works of contemporary creatives called to be inspired by the suggestions coming from ancient knowledge: alongside JR, the American typographer Bill Moran and the Italian chef Fulvio Pierangelini responded to the call.
(L-R) The artists Fulvio Pierangelini, Bill Moran and JR at the Vatican Apostolic Library during inauguration of the Series of Exhibitions “Catastrophe and Wonder”, Vatican City, 14 September 2026. ANSA/GIUSEPPE LAMI
Water and Knowledge: A Millennial Relationship
The result is a unique experience based on an exceptional selection of manuscripts, printed books, engravings, and objects from the Vatican collections that testify to the millennial relationship between water and knowledge. Works that, from Apicius’ De re coquinaria to the travel tales of Giovanni Battista Ramusio, from marine bestiaries to numismatic curiosities related to the aquatic world, dialogue with Moran’s Letterfishes hanging on the walls – marine creatures made of letters, numbers, and paragraph marks – and with Pierangelini’s unpublished gastronomic stories, collected in the Library’s 2027 agenda.
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