Wire report
‘An unsettling colonial collection’: should the Vatican return items ‘gifted’ to it from Indigenous peoples?
As Rome prepares to celebrate 400 years of St Peter’s Basilica, a prized collection of artefacts acquired by Catholic missionaries is staying out of the spotlight. We take a closer look In the four-hour queue to get into the Vatican Museums last week, everyone around me was fixed on seeing the Sistine Chapel. A couple of people mentioned the Raphael rooms, and someone else was looking forward to the classical sculpture of Apollo. But no one else was headed where I was going: the Anima Mundi, formerly the Ethnological Museum, home to around 80,000 objects from across the globe, many of which were “gifted” to the Catholic church in Rome by Indigenous peoples at a time when its missionaries were powerful, and sometimes dubious, figures in their far-flung communities. The collection is housed a few steps inside the main door of the Vatican Museums, in a basement: and, sure enough, on the day
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As Rome prepares to celebrate 400 years of St Peter’s Basilica, a prized collection of artefacts acquired by Catholic missionaries is staying out of the spotlight. We take a closer look In the four-hour queue to get into the Vatican Museums last week, everyone around me was fixed on seeing the Sistine Chapel. A couple of people mentioned the Raphael rooms, and someone else was looking forward to the classical sculpture of Apollo. But no one else was headed where I was going: the Anima Mundi, formerly the Ethnological Museum, home to around 80,000 objects from across the globe, many of which were “gifted” to the Catholic church in Rome by Indigenous peoples at a time when its missionaries were powerful, and sometimes dubious, figures in their far-flung communities. The collection is housed a few steps inside the main door of the Vatican Museums, in a basement: and, sure enough, on the day
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What happened
According to The Guardian’s source item, ‘An unsettling colonial collection’: should the Vatican return items ‘gifted’ to it from Indigenous peoples?, As Rome prepares to celebrate 400 years of St Peter’s Basilica, a prized collection of artefacts acquired by Catholic missionaries is staying out of the spotlight. We take a closer look In the four-hour queue to get into the Vatican Museums last week, everyone around me was fixed on seeing the Sistine Chapel. A couple of people mentioned the Raphael rooms, and someone else was looking forward to the classical sculpture of Apollo. But no one else was headed where I was going: the Anima Mundi, formerly the Ethnological Museum, home to around 80,000 objects from across the globe, many of which were “gifted” to the Catholic church in Rome by Indigenous peoples at a time when its missionaries were powerful, and sometimes dubious, figures in their far-flung communities. The collection is housed a few steps inside the main door of the Vatican Museums, in a basement: and, sure enough, on the day
Context
The development sits in VINI’s Culture file for readers following arts, entertainment, fashion, film, music, celebrity, and the business of culture. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The source item is dated 2026-11-11T12:17:13+00:00.
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Source
Primary source: ‘An unsettling colonial collection’: should the Vatican return items ‘gifted’ to it from Indigenous peoples? via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.
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- ‘An unsettling colonial collection’: should the Vatican return items ‘gifted’ to it from Indigenous peoples?The Guardian - 2026-11-11T12:17:13+00:00
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