For the first time, after numerous speculation and delays since 2009, the Vatican is about to have its own pavilion at the next Venice Biennale. According to the director of the Vatican Museum, Antonio Paolucci,

Even though Paolucci declined to comment on the works to be shown in Venice, the Italian newspaper La Stampa reported that

With a brand new Pope — and one who by all indications is going to do things in a “contemporary” way — it seems fitting that 2013 is the year that The Holy See interprets the way that it sees the world.

The Biennale’s theme, chosen by curator Massimiliano Gioni is ‘Il Palazzo Enciclopedico / The Encyclopedic Palace’. The idea refers back to the concept of Italian-American artists Marino Auriti who in 1955 filed a design with the US Patent office depicting hit Palazzo Enciclopedico, “an imaginary museum that was meant to house all worldly knowledge, bringing together the greatest discoveries of the human race, from wheel to the satellite.

Auriti’s plan was never carried out, of course, but the dream of universal, all-embracing knowledge crops up throughout history, as one that eccentrics like Auriti share with many other artists, writers, scientists, and prophets who have tried – often in vain – to fashion an image of the world that will capture its infinite variety and richness.

These personal cosmologies, with their delusions of omniscience, shed light on the constant challenge of reconciling the self with the universe, the subjective with the collective, the specific with the general, the individual with the culture of her time.