London's Victoria and Albert Museum to Exhibit Sistine Chapel Tapestries

(20 July 10 - RV) After 500 years apart, Raphael’s stunning Sistine Chapel tapestries and the original designs for the series are set to be reunited in a “once in a lifetime” exhibition in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.


Organised to mark Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to England and Scotland this September, the event will see four of the Vatican’s giant tapestries which depict scenes from the lives of St Peter and Paul, hung alongside Raphael's seven surviving cartoons, which belong to Queen Elizabeth II.


To celebrate the initiative, last week and for one night only, six of the tapestries were hung exactly where they were originally designed to be placed: on the lower walls of the Sistine Chapel.

Professor Arnold Nesselrath, director of the Vatican Museums' Byzantine, medieval and modern collections, was there and told me more about the initiative: