Artist's monumental installation opens a new five-year exhibition cycle blessed by Pope Leo on his birthday.French street artist JR has transformed the 16th-century façade of the Vatican Apostolic Library with a monumental black-and-white image of a crashing wave, unveiled in the Cortile del Belvedere on Monday.The site-specific work, titled Diluvium, measures roughly 30 metres high and 70 metres wide, Vatican News reports. It is based on an illustration by 19th-century French artist Gustave Doré depicting the biblical Flood, originally created for a French Bible published in 1866. A rare 1870 Milanese edition of the same illustration, published by Treves, features in the exhibition inside. Blown up to architectural scale, the wave appears on the point of engulfing the historic building, setting up a tension between the library's role as guardian of centuries of memory and water's power to destroy it in an instant. JR has said the image also speaks to present-day anxieties, from political polarisation to the "absorption" of knowledge by artificial intelligence. It is the first site-specific work ever commissioned for the exterior of the Vatican Apostolic Library. JR, who was behind a major installation outside the French embassy in Rome a few years ago, has also created a second work, Undae, inside the Vatican Library building. The installation launches AQVA. Catastrofe e meraviglia (Catastrophe and Wonder), the opening chapter of a five-year exhibition series exploring the forces that have historically threatened the written word: water, fire, light, insects and human intervention. The show is curated by Giacomo Cardinali, Simona De Crescenzo, Francesca Giannetto and Delio Proverbio, and marks the start of a three-year partnership between the library and Fondazione Roma dedicated to conservation and restoration. Pope Leo XIV inaugurated the exhibition in person, on his first visit to the Vatican Library as pontiff, and on his 71st birthday. He recalled that his own mother had worked as a librarian, and praised the institution's long tradition of openness to scholarship from across the world and beyond Christian and European contexts. Alongside JR's installation, the exhibition features Letterfishes, a series of works by American typographer Bill Moran built entirely from typeset letters, numbers and punctuation arranged into sea creatures, and short gastronomic texts by chef Fulvio Pierangelini inspired by historic recipe books in the library's collections. A section marking 60 years since the catastrophic 1966 Florence flood displays archival photographs of the damage wrought on the city's Biblioteca Nazionale. The show closes with a display on the library's own conservation laboratory, reframing water from destructive threat to essential restoration tool. AQVA will be open to the public on Fridays and Saturdays from 25 September until 14 May 2027 at the Vatican Apostolic Library. For visiting details and updates see the Fondazione Roma website. Photo credit: Diluvium, 12 septembre 2026, 07h18, Vatican, 2026 (c) JR. Image courtesy Fondazione Roma.

French street artist JR has transformed the 16th-century façade of the Vatican Apostolic Library with a monumental black-and-white image of a crashing wave, unveiled in the Cortile del Belvedere on Monday. The site-specific work, titled Diluvium, measures roughly 30 metres high and 70 metres wide, Vatican News reports. It is based on an illustration by 19th-century French artist Gustave Doré depicting the biblical Flood, originally created for a French Bible published in 1866. A rare 1870 Milanese edition of the same illustration, published by Treves, features in the exhibition inside. Blown up to architectural scale, the wave appears on the point of engulfing the historic building, setting up a tension between the library's role as guardian of centuries of memory and water's power to destroy it in an instant. JR has said the image also speaks to present-day anxieties, from political polarisation to the "absorption" of knowledge by artificial intelligence. It is the first site-specific work ever commissioned for the exterior of the Vatican Apostolic Library. JR, who was behind a in Rome a few years ago, has also created a second work, Undae, inside the Vatican Library building. The installation launches AQVA. Catastrofe e meraviglia (Catastrophe and Wonder), the opening chapter of a five-year exhibition series exploring the forces that have historically threatened the written word: water, fire, light, insects and human intervention. The show is curated by Giacomo Cardinali, Simona De Crescenzo, Francesca Giannetto and Delio Proverbio, and marks the start of a three-year partnership between the library and Fondazione Roma dedicated to conservation and restoration. Pope Leo XIV inaugurated the exhibition in person, on his first visit to the Vatican Library as pontiff, and on his 71st birthday. He recalled that his own mother had worked as a librarian, and praised the institution's long tradition of openness to scholarship from across the world and beyond Christian and European contexts. Alongside JR's installation, the exhibition features Letterfishes, a series of works by American typographer Bill Moran built entirely from typeset letters, numbers and punctuation arranged into sea creatures, and short gastronomic texts by chef Fulvio Pierangelini inspired by historic recipe books in the library's collections. A section marking 60 years since the catastrophic 1966 Florence flood displays archival photographs of the damage wrought on the city's Biblioteca Nazionale. The show closes with a display on the library's own conservation laboratory, reframing water from destructive threat to essential restoration tool. AQVA will be open to the public on Fridays and Saturdays from 25 September until 14 May 2027 at the Vatican Apostolic Library. For visiting details and updates see the . Photo credit: Diluvium, 12 septembre 2026, 07h18, Vatican, 2026 (c) JR. Image courtesy Fondazione Roma.