Vatican: A Fresco by Giotto for the Pope’s Christmas cards

“A Son is given to us, the Prince of Peace”.

Pope Francis has chosen a nativity scene painted by Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337) to illustrate the Christmas cards sent by the Vatican. The image chosen is a reproduction of a fresco in the inferior basilica of St. Francis, in Assisi. The Christmas card also includes the biblical quote: Filius datus est nobis, Princeps Pacis (“A Son is given to us, the Prince of Peace”) (Isaiah 9:5)

According to the internet daily Aleteia on December 7, 2016, the Holy Father chose to exalt “the simple and natural to wish the Roman Curia, the Vatican employees and all the faithful a Merry Christmas (…).” This is the only fresco in the world that shows two Child Jesus’s. Enzo Fortunato, a member of the press service at the convent in Assisi, quoted by Aleteia, explains that “these two little Jesus’s illustrate Christ’s double nature: human and divine.”

Ever since Paul VI in 1963, the pope himself has chosen the theme of his Christmas cards and the phrase to go with them, generally taken from Holy Scripture.

(sources: cath.ch/aleteia/imedia – DICI no.347 Dec. 23, 2016)