The brief video on the great exhibition The colors of charity. Iconography of Saint Vincent de Paul in Italian art between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, on exhibit from 15 December 2017 to 25 February 2018 at the Collegio Alberoni of Piacenza wanted and wants to be a visual memory of this event. It has accompanied the more than 4000 visitors to the exhibition and it has introduced them to read the works of art on exhibition. The circumstance of the four hundred years of the beginning of the Vincentian charism (1617 -2017), which has involved the whole Vincentian Family in the world in order to remember the event, it did not leave us missionaries of the Collegio Alberoni insensitive. It was spontaneous to participate in it according to the artistic vocation of the Collegio.
The video briefly describes the most beautiful representations of Saint Vincent and of his charism, with which our Fathers, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, wanted to glorify and to preserve the Vincentian charism through the beauty of art. On the wave of the glorification of the holiness of Saint Vincent proclaimed by the Church, precisely in that moment it began a current of painting celebrating the Vincentian charism with paintings by first level author, such as Aureliano Milani, Sebastiano Conca and Giacomo Zoboli in Rome, or Vittorio Amedeo Rapous and Michele Antonio Milocco in Turin, or Giuseppe Antonio Petrini in Bergamo, or Giuseppe Peroni in Piacenza, or Pietro Micheli in Pavia and Genoa, and Giacomo Antonio Boni in Genoa.
We have described these masterpieces on video, in order to give a visual testimony and also to allow those who have not been able to take part directly in the exhibition to enjoy its beauty. To make sense of the extensiveness of the devotion to Saint Vincent in Italy, for the first time, a census of all the paintings in Italy was made with a fairly complete report in a catalogue of great value and very appreciated. Those who wish it can request it. We will gladly offer it.
Fr. Erminio Antonello, CM
Province of Italy
