Mother of God

On October 21, 1997, the newly founded Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, DC, and the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State signed a historic agreement establishing a collaborative exhibition program between the Vatican Museums and the Cultural Center. This exquisitely designed catalog documents the inaugural exhibit, The Mother of God: Art Celebrates Mary, while reflecting a subject of timeless appeal to all Christians. Two essays and thirty-eight catalogue entries, written by the curators at the Vatican Museums, are complemented by rich illustrations. Together they initiate a dialogue on the subject of faith while tracing the history of the depiction of Mary from the earliest years of Christianity to the present. It is especially appropriate that the Cultural Center's inaugural exhibition be dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God. The affinity between Pope John Paul II and the Mother of God is indelible and his filial devotion to Our Lady so clearly professed that an exhibition celebrating the opening of the Cultural Center could only have