Buona Festa

Happy feast of St. Matthew.

I first saw this Guido Reni when it came to Toronto as part of an exhibition of Vatican treasures that visited for World Youth Day 2002. When I moved here, I went to the Vatican Museums and was overjoyed to see it again, like greeting a long lost friend. It was wonderful to be able to look at it closely enough to examine his brush work.

Parishioners at Santissima Trinita de Pellegrini are immensely proud of our beautiful Reni.


His great masterpiece of the Holy Trinity hangs above the altar and is so enormous it creates a false sense of scale.


Of course, Trinita is jammed with important art works.


This is the back wall of the sacristy.

It is one thing to see these great works in a museum and I'm glad we can, but it is an entirely different experience to see them in the context for which they were created. Being in a Roman church with the works of the Baroque masters all around makes one really understand what religious art is for.



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