SACRED ART, PONTIFICAL CENTRAL COMMISSION FOR. - In Italy it supervises the conservation and enhancement of the Church's artistic heritage through general action of direction, inspection and promotion, and through particular assistance and oversight of the diocesan commissions for sacred art. It was instituted on 1 September 1924 by a circular of the Secretariat of State of His Holiness and has remained under the direct authority of that Secretariat, while also having relations with other Congregations and ecclesiastical Dicasteries. The founding act appointed its first members, twenty-four in number, namely twelve liturgists, art historians, etc., four engineers and architects, four painters, four sculptors. The number of members was considerably increased after Pope Pius XII, in order to promote and regulate the work of reconstruction and restoration of the churches and ecclesiastical buildings destroyed or damaged by the war in Italy, decreed that this work be carried out under the direction of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Art (letter of the Secretariat of State of 31 October 1944).
The Commission's first act was the publication of a booklet entitled Disposizioni pontificie in materia d'arte sacra, which reproduces the circular of the Secretariat of State, sets out certain practical norms for the protection and enhancement of the sacred-artistic heritage, summarizes the articles of the code of canon law that relate to it, and provides models for the record cards of the catalogues and inventories required of the diocesan commissions. In 1933 another booklet, Il monito del Sommo Pontefice in materia di arte sacra, commented on important declarations of Pius XI. Other publications of an organizational nature offered the diocesan commissions a model for their statutes, gave practical norms concerning the relations between patrons and artists, etc.
Very commendably, the Commission has promoted, organized and directed the weeks of sacred art for the clergy, which from 1933 to 1939 were held in the autumn of each year in Rome or in other cities particularly indicated by centenaries or other solemn artistic events. Here is the list: Rome 1933, Rome 1934, Ferrara 1935, Rome 1936, Florence 1937, Naples 1938, Venice 1939. The results achieved, both from the cultural and programmatic point of view and from the organizational one, are attested by the volumes of the Atti, published thus far for the first five weeks: the variety of the themes treated makes them an indispensable encyclopedia for anyone concerned with the problems of art in the house of God.
Very effective has been the Commission's action in securing the establishment and stimulating the functioning of the diocesan commissions: the inventories and lists that some of them have already sent constitute extremely valuable material. Very many are the projects examined and the disputes resolved by the Commission, not only on the proposal of the diocesan commissions, but also at the request of civil authorities and foreign bodies.