Writing and Images: The Codex Purpureus Rossanensis and a Selection of the Medieval Greek Manuscripts of Grottaferrata

TheAbbey of St. Nilus in Grottaferrata celebrates the millennium of the dedication of the Church of St. Mary (1024-2024) with the exhibition Codex Purpureus Rossanensis and a selection of the medieval Greek manuscripts of Grottaferrata, which will open on December 7, 2024.

The decision to exhibit the facsimile edition produced by Panini publisher in 2019, from the Diocesan and Codex Museum in Rossano Calabro, descends from the genetic story of the Abbey Museum.

The Codex purpureus, a work of extraordinary artistic, historical and iconological-liturgical value, was already on display at the 1905 Italo-Byzantine Exposition held at San Nilo, which on the one hand is one of the founding moments of Byzantine studies in Italy, and on the other represented an occasion for the reorganization and remounting of the Museum itself, which was inaugurated in 1894. With this operation the Abbey recounted its oriental vocation and the history of monastic collecting, from which the Museum originated, then enriched over time with materials from the excavations of the Superintendency and the departments of the various phases of the site's life, until it came to qualify as a museum of the Abbey and the territory, as it is today.

The exhibition of the Codex also gives reason for other aspects of the continuity of vocation of this place: first of all, the bookish one, from the scriptorium monastic, to the National Library, to the Laboratory of Ancient Book Restoration, which are based in the complex, in the setting of Grottaferrata, "city of the book."

It is precisely to the history of restoration - of which, among other things, through the various interventions undergone over the centuries, and currently in progress, the Abbey is expressive - that is linked the choice to exhibit in the Museum also additional reproductions from the State Library of San Nilo. Indeed, the pages addressed allow us to appreciate the evolution of the work's state of conservation and the effects of the restorations.

Together with the manuscripts on display in the Library, at such an important moment for the history of the monument, the Lazio National Museums Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Culture, expresses its territorial vocation, in a happy collaboration with public and private, civil and ecclesiastical institutions of the territory and beyond, through an exhibition that refers to the Greek tradition of the site, the history of the place of culture as such and the complexity of its millennial life.

EXHIBITION OPENING HOURS
Museum of the Greek Abbey of San Nilo - Grottaferrata
State Library of the National Monument of Grottaferrata

December 7, 2024 to January 26, 2025 

Every Friday - Saturday - Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.