New paintings on the General House
The General House of the Theatine Order has new paintings, adorning the gallery and teaching us about Theatine Spirituality on the road to 500 years.
Rodolfo Papa’s work continues to complete the painting cycle, in his words:
“These two new paintings are one, of course the Coat of Arms which is an overlay that somehow celebrates the centennial and recalls two coats of arms that have been important throughout time and takes up two fundamental elements the Winged Heart and the Cross that are also present in the large painting that we have entitled somehow the Great Cross. The Great Cross which has a certain tradition, an ancient tradition in the Theatine order that has in the center precisely the cross as a symbol in the late 500s and in the 600s this painting, this structure let’s say so, had so many inscriptions and so many symbols and somehow had then under its feet the whole Theatine order, the male branch, the feline branch, and also the people. So I thought of replacing the bottom part with the city of Rome with the jubilee let’s say so of 500 years which almost coincides with the jubilee of 2025 of the city of Rome but mainly I put in the center just Sant’Andrea della Valle where the General Curia is to indicate the whole order and the whole the whole world symbolized in some way in the city that is that angel carrying a book that somehow protects with its movement and the lilies that are thrown from above by St. Cajetan from above and there is not even one resting a branch of flowering lilies resting on the book and then this angel looking at the faithful walking in the cloister of the convent, of the General Curia which bears a fundamental phrase: “God then increased, increased this” that is to say what there is precisely the gesture of Cajetan who says “I founded it usually” in the ancient paintings it says I founded it then the others contributed it in short, the other three founders, but then it says “God increased the Order,” here I thought to start precisely from this rebirth, starting from this General Curia the City of Rome returns to have a shining Order that in the meantime protects all of Rome, and then from Rome also the whole world, in fact the idea is to continue the cycle then representing each Theatine Province in the world, and then put the salient characters, the elements that spirituality, the saints of each province around the world. It is above there is the holy spirit as tradition dictates in the center there is the winged heart, the four founders, the angel who carries this phrase written in gold on the book, which is that God has increased the Order and that He protects the Order through all the graces that still St. Cajetan sends over the city of Rome on the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, and from there the whole world has as illumination the propagation of the Theatine spirituality.
In summary, I am making all the Theatine iconography contemporary. Gradually the various things, the various elements, even the painting, the other painting of St. Cajetan with this giant archbishop around the virgin and then the angel and then Cajetan’s mystical experience. This painting, even the initial painting about the founders and the planetarium that is at the entrance, take the classical themes, the ancient themes of the order and make them contemporary, in a contemporary language but keeping all the sense and all the flavor of the original iconography.”
