Maria Lai’s artistic endeavor is strongly defined by a reciprocal intermingling of secular and religious spirituality, all of it enveloped in utter silence. The Presepi and the Viae Crucis presented in this volume disclose once more Maria Lai’s idea of “making art” as something that must respond to the needs and to the essential, practical questions of mankind, to that impulse toward investigation that stems first and foremost from one’s inner self.

They counterbalance other works that present her reinterpretation of sacred history, drawings in which the artist depicts local culture and daily domestic life with simple but bold lines. For Maria Lai, art is connected to the meaning of existence, and the search for this meaning finds expression in the present volume.

Micol Forti has been the director of the Collection of Contemporary Art of the Vatican Museums since 2000. After obtaining a specialization and doctoral degree in art history, from 2001 to 2015 she taught art literature and museology at Sapienza University in Rome. Her research ranges from the critique and history of twentieth-century art to contemporary sacred art and papal art collecting, touching upon aspects of the conservation of historical and artistic heritage.

Maria Lai’s artistic endeavor is strongly defined by a reciprocal intermingling of secular and religious spirituality, all of it enveloped in utter silence. The Presepi and the Viae Crucis presented in this volume disclose once more Maria Lai’s idea of “making art” as something that must respond to the needs and to the essential, practical questions of mankind, to that impulse toward investigation that stems first and foremost from one’s inner self.

They counterbalance other works that present her reinterpretation of sacred history, drawings in which the artist depicts local culture and daily domestic life with simple but bold lines. For Maria Lai, art is connected to the meaning of existence, and the search for this meaning finds expression in the present volume.

Micol Forti has been the director of the Collection of Contemporary Art of the Vatican Museums since 2000. After obtaining a specialization and doctoral degree in art history, from 2001 to 2015 she taught art literature and museology at Sapienza University in Rome. Her research ranges from the critique and history of twentieth-century art to contemporary sacred art and papal art collecting, touching upon aspects of the conservation of historical and artistic heritage.