What It’s Like to Unbox Precious Artifacts That Have Never Left the Vatican

May 4, 2018

You’ve never seen an unboxing video quite like this one: In preparation for “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination”, the Costume Institute’s spring 2018 exhibition, head conservator Sarah Scaturro and Costume Institute staff delicately unpacked dozens of precious objects from the Vatican, many of which have never before left Rome. These incredibly protected relics (worn and used by various Popes) together comprise the living heart of the exhibition, which explores fashion’s ongoing engagement with the devotional practices and traditions of Catholicism, and which will be celebrated at this year’s Met Gala.

As filmed by Nikolai Kokanovic, unboxing the Vatican’s most prized garments was like performing its own kind of sacrament, and in fact these objects inspired a certain reverence beyond what conservators usually experience in the controlled environment of the lab beneath the Met, even before they arrived in New York City. For one thing, Scaturro and others knew how rare it was for items like the cassock of Pope John Paul II, shown being unpacked in the video here, to be displayed to the public, let alone travel between continents; only after long negotiations between the Vatican and Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator in charge, were fragile papal robes and accessories from the Sistine Chapel sacristy released from their hallowed home. For another, the items they gently revealed from beneath mounds packing material carry the weight of centuries of tradition—which can now be witnessed by thousands of people who might not be able to get to the Vatican, but who can make a pilgrimage to the Met.

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