The Diplomat
The Spanish Embassy to the Holy See yesterday inaugurated an artistic installation that aims to reflect some moments of the 400 years of life of what is the oldest diplomatic headquarters in the world.
The diplomatic representation is located in the central Piazza di Spagna in Rome, in what was once the Moaldeschi Palace, rented in 1622 to be the seat of the Spanish ambassadors to the Vatican, and which became known as the Palazzo Spagna when it was acquired by the Spanish Crown in 1647.
The artistic installation is the work of the Italian Roberto Lucifero and is made up of three large-scale ephemeral ‘technological’ tapestries inspired by the 17th century and representing three different scenes: the purchase of the palace by Íñigo Vélez de Guevara, Count of Oñate; the moment when the painter Diego Velázquez, who spent two periods of his life in Rome, painted the portrait of Pope Innocent X; and a pyrotechnic machine used in the festivities of the Spanish Steps in Rome.
In addition, three messages can be read which, according to Lucifero, “are what the building wants to say about itself” and what this diplomatic seat represented for centuries: “Art and power, dialogue and peace and faith and reason”.
Yesterday, at the inauguration, which included a staging of dances and music at the door of the Palace by the Roman band “Brama”, the ambassador to the Holy See, Isabel Celaá, was present, along with the Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Luis Cuesta, and Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri.
Celáa explained that he had asked the artist to look at the 17th century, “when Spain,” he said, “is at its peak, the champion of the Catholic world and its safeguard against Lutheranism”.
Given that the installation will be on display until the end of this year, the ambassador expressed her hope that Pope Francis will visit the Embassy on 8 December during the celebration of the Immaculate Conception, when pontiffs come to the Plaza de España. “We invite him to everything, to a chocolate or whatever,” said the former Minister of Education, for whom relations between the government of Pedro Sánchez and the Vatican are “great”.
