Pope Leo XIV inaugurated AQVA – Catastrophe and Wonder on Monday, 14 September. Visitors enter through Diluvium, a 70-metre-long installation by French street artist JR, the first site-specific work commissioned for the exterior of the 16th-century library.
Inside, art and rare books explore water as both a source of life and a force of destruction. Works by American typographer Bill Moran and Italian chef Fulvio Pierangelini are shown alongside Aquatilium animalium historiae, a 16th-century study of fish and aquatic animals by Italian naturalist Ippolito Salviani, published 470 years ago.
