Room of the Immaculate Conception

The painted ceremony belongs to a specific event in the Church’s history. In 1854, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the Catholic belief concerning Mary’s freedom from original sin. He commissioned this room’s decoration to commemorate the proclamation. Painter Francesco Podesti and his team worked here from 1856 to 1865. The programme surrounds the event with heavenly figures, allegories of the continents and scenes associated with St Peter’s Basilica. The patron, Pius IX, appears within the history he had asked the artist to paint. The large bookcase adds another way of commemorating the same declaration. It was made by the Paris firm Christofle in the 1870s to hold translations of the papal document, Ineffabilis Deus. Designer Emile Reiber brought together the work of many different craftspeople. Compare the object’s role with the paintings. The walls present the proclamation as a ceremony, while the bookcase preserves its words in different languages.