Giotto fresco becomes official stamp for 2025 Jubilee at Pinacoteca Ambrosiana

The Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan is hosting a special exhibition celebrating the 2025 Jubilee, the second called by Pope Francis. The show features rare manuscripts from the Veneranda Biblioteca founded by Cardinal Borromeo, including an illustration of a lost Giotto fresco chosen for the official limited-edition stamp. The stamp, produced in about 250,000 copies by the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy, reproduces a watercolor by Giacomo Grimaldi from the 1590 Instrumenta Traslationum titled "Pope Boniface VIII proclaims the first Holy Year in 1300." The fresco depicts the pope blessing the crowd from the loggia of San Giovanni in Laterano during the first Jubilee. Only the faces of the pope and two clerics survive from Giotto's original. The exhibition traces key moments in Jubilee tradition, focusing on the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, whose 1700th anniversary falls this year. It includes a 1400s codex open to Dante's terzina referencing the 1300 pilgrims, a 14th-century copy of the papal bull granting forgiveness, and engravings by Bernard Picart showing the ritual opening of the Holy Door. The Council of Nicaea section features an illustration by Ludovico Pogliaghi of Emperor Constantine surrounded by clerics, a booklet listing the 318 bishops in their own languages, the text of the Symbol (Creed), and an early 12th-century parchment highlighting the calculation of Easter's date.