Museums in Philadelphia are bracing themselves for the arrival of Pope Francis, who is scheduled to visit the city for the World Meeting of Families (22-27 September), a triennial Catholic event. Cultural institutions around the city are hoping to draw some of the meeting’s estimated 1.5 to 2 million attendees with themed displays.
The Rosenbach Museum and Library will present Catholic texts printed in the New World from the 16th to 18th centuries (1 September-30 January 2016), while the Free Library of Philadelphia’s rare book department will showcase historical texts from multiple faiths (31 August-30 January 2016). The Franklin Institute is mounting an exhibition of loans from the Vatican (19 September-15 February 2016). Meanwhile, the Penn Museum is highlighting two of its treasures in a special exhibition: a cuneiform tablet with the Mesopotamian flood story (around 1650BC), and a fragment of an early gospel of Saint Matthew in Greek (around 300AD) (until 7 November).
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is taking a more contemporary route with the unveiling of Robert Indiana’s sculpture AMOR (1998), on loan from the Morgan Art Foundation (courtesy of Simon and Marc Salama-Caro) on 22 September. Installed on the East Terrace of the museum in collaboration with the Association for Public Art, the work will overlook the Papal mass on 27 September.
The papal visit, which includes stops in Washington, DC, and New York before Philadelphia, also poses logistical challenges. A Rosenbach Museum spokeswoman likened it to “a combination of the president coming and the Olympics”. Many museums, including the Barnes Foundation and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will close at the weekend when the Pope arrives due to a security ban on vehicles in the city centre.
