The Venerable English College has opened its exhibition Non Angli sed Angeli to the general public, offering an extraordinary opportunity for visitors to see and learn about the oldest British institution outside of England. Father Andrew Headon, Director and Curator of the exhibition, elaborates on the exhibition's unique angle:And so I had the idea that the story of the seminary and the hospice would be told in the context of pilgrimage from England to Rome and mission from Rome back to England."What I wanted to do was to tell a story about the oldest English institution outside England. It's founded in 1362 as a hospice -- a royal hospice -- for pilgrims coming from England. It then later became a seminary in 1579 to train priests at a time when it was illegal to be a Catholic priest in England, to train priests to go back to England. And at that time, so they martyred them if they caught them celebrating the sacraments."The name of the exhibition, Non Angli sed Angeli—Not Angles but Angels, comes from the famous quip by Pope Gregory the Great upon first seeing the Angle slaves in Rome. This experience would later lead him to send Augustine to convert England to Christianity.Highlighting the martyrdom of Catholics that ensued in England during the Protestant Reformation, claiming the lives of 44 College seminarians, a feature of the exhibit is a 3 dimensional recreation of Durante Alberti's Martyrs' Picture, the altarpiece from the College Church of the Most Holy Trinity and Saint Thomas of Canterbury, which also re-opened after two years of restoration.There's a picture that was painted in 1583, just two years after the martyrdom, after the first student of Ralph Sherwin. The picture depicts the Trinity, and two English martyrs, Thomas of Canterbury and King Edmund, the Saxon King. And the two martyrs are welcoming the students into the picture and through the Flaminian gate back to England and/or paradise.To see the anamorphosis and the original, as well as experience Tudor England and to make the famous pilgrimage on the Via Francigenia that links England to Rome, all from the comfort of the Eternal City, visit Non Angli sed Angeli, which is open until the end of July 2010, at the Venerable English College in the historical city center.http://www.angelisunt.it/
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1:21Gospel for sunday 29 january 2012by h2onews87 views
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