Vatican to open NFT gallery

The main aim of the project is to “democratize art”

05.05.2022 - 07:25

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What’s new? The Vatican has announced a joint project between its own non-profit organization Humanity 2.0 and Sensorium, a VR solutions developer, to create an NFT gallery. With this project, the Vatican intends to “democratize art” and provide access to the masterpieces in its collection for viewers from around the world, ARTnews reports.

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What else is known about the gallery? The Vatican has a collection of more than 800 artworks, including works by Raphael, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, and Kandinsky. If successful, the virtual NFT gallery will be launched by the end of 2022.

It is not yet known which masterpieces and artworks from the collection will be available in the virtual gallery. The Vatican noted that they have no plans to sell NFTs and call the project exclusively social, not commercial. The Chair of Humanity 2.0 Father Philip Larrey stated that the joint project of the NFT gallery with Sensorium VR would make art more accessible to people around the world, regardless of socio-economic and geographic limitations.

What events happened before? In October 2022, the Vatican called on the international community to regulate cryptocurrency, especially due to its increasing use for the smuggling and exploitation of migrants. The Vatican said it should promote the development and implementation of mechanisms for identifying users of virtual assets in order to increase market transparency and combat the financing of illegal activities.

In late 2021, the French art gallery Imperial Arts held an auction in which Napoleon Bonaparte’s personal belongings were exhibited in the form of NFT tokens.

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