Encore Episode: A Christmas Conspiracy

Tickets will be available soon for The Object LOVE!, a very Valentine’s edition of our live taping of the podcast, happening February 7 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, with quizzes, storytelling, and very special musical guest jeremy messersmith, all about the gods in (and out of) love!

It’s good to be the pope in the 1600s. But staying pope is not so easy, as the famous Barberini family finds out when one of their own takes up the tiara in 1623. As Rome fills up with their art, and dungeons fill up with their enemies, can they survive the forces of change threatening their worldview—and the forces of the occult threatening to kill the pope on Christmas Day?

You can see some of the art commissioned by the Barberini family, including Pope Urban VIII, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

And of course you can see it all over Rome—in the Piazza Barberini, the Palazzo Barberini, etc. Look closely at St. Peter’s Basilica and you may see the curious Barberini family crest—a trio of bees—on fountains, frames, and even the altar. You can read about its symbolism here.