“These are works by the great Cretan master El Greco, an unconventional, irregular and pioneering artist who, from his native Candia—where he trained as an icon painter within the Byzantine tradition—first moved to Venice, where he absorbed the light and color of the painting of Titian and Tintoretto, and then to Rome, where he was called to confront the great masters Raphael and Michelangelo, whom he nevertheless struggled to appreciate.”
“El Greco in the Mirror: Two Paintings Compared” is the title of the exhibition that will be inaugurated on Saturday, March 14, at 4:00 PM, at the Apostolic Palace of Castel Gandolfo.
The second bulletin of this year from the Working Group for Small Body Nomenclature of the IAU (International Astronomical Union) announced that additional asteroids have been named after Jesuit scientists of the Vatican Observatory. Several asteroids, co-discovered by Vatican astronomer Fr. Richard P. Boyle, SJ, together with his long-time collaborator K. Černis (of Vilnius, Lithuania), using the Vatican Observatory’s VATT telescope on Mount Graham, have received official designations.
Completing the robotization process of the VATT (Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope) on Mount Graham in Arizona. Finishing the 3D scanning and documentation of the approximately 1,200 meteorites preserved in the laboratory and, in the observatory at Castel Gandolfo, introducing the first GPUs (Graphic Processing Units) to enhance computational capabilities and the theoretical program, also through a new series of theoretical seminars on physics. These are the priorities indicated for 2026 by its Director, Jesuit Fr. Richard Anthony D’Souza for the Vatican Observatory in this interview for the Governorate’s website www.vaticanstate.va.
The Commemorative Year dedicated to Father Francesco Denza concluded with a solemn symposium in Moncalieri (province of Turin) that cast new light on the extraordinary legacy of a man able to embody a perfect synthesis of priesthood, education, and cutting-edge scientific research.