The exhibition “Witness of the Resurrection”, organized by CRELEB (European Research Center for Book Publishing Library) of the Catholic University and by Pro Terra Sancta as part of the “Books Bridges of Peace” project, will be inaugurated on November 7, within the Custodial Curia of the Convent of San Salvatore in Jerusalem. The event aims to offer the public a temporal journey to discover the Holy Sepulchre, through the testimonies of pilgrims who have left traces of it in their travel diaries. The protagonists will therefore be the pilgrimage itineraries selected from the fund that houses them in the General Library of the Custody of the Holy Land.
At the same time as the restoration of the pavement
The idea of the exhibition was born on the occasion of the current restoration work on the pavement of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, which began in the spring of 2022 and which currently involves numerous experts and archaeologists from all over the world. Inspired by the ultimate goal of these on-site works, which intend to give prestige to this monument, the heart of Christianity, the ITS fund, dedicated to the Itineraries in the Holy Land, kept at the General Library of the Custody, was examined to select texts with depictions of the Basilica. Thanks to the wide time span that the fund is able to cover, the public will have the opportunity to view the numerous evolutions experienced by the Holy Sepulchre over the centuries, from the point of view of the pilgrims who landed in this place.
During the opening hours of the exhibition, from 7 to 11 November, from 9 to 18, the public will have the opportunity to be guided by the volunteers present to learn about the three different thematic areas in which the exhibition is divided. “Witness of the Resurrection” will in fact focus on the story of pilgrimages to the Holy Land, on the descriptions of the Holy Sepulchre within the latter and also on a precise architectural study of the Basilica, thanks to the exhibition of tables and detailed plans.
The project Books Bridges of Peace
The exhibition is part of the project “Books Bridges of Peace”, which since June 2011 aims to enhance the book heritage of the Franciscan libraries of Jerusalem. Conceived by Edoardo Barbieri, professor of Book History and Bibliology at the Catholic University of Milan, “Libri Ponti di Pace” was born from the collaboration between CRELEB (European Research Center for Book Publishing Library), Pro Terra Sancta and the Custody of the Holy Land, with the support of numerous other associations such as the Catholic University of Milan and the Tuscan Bibliographical Society. The initiative of the exhibition “Witness of the resurrection” is therefore a stage in a long and rich journey that over the years has focused respectively on the study and enhancement of the precious ancient and modern funds of the Franciscan libraries in the Holy Land, through their cataloguing, the creation of computerized catalogs and the publication of the study results of the collections preserved therein.
Maddalena Baschirotto | proterrasancta.org
