This well‐known site will be appreciated and used by students and teachers (at any level), art lovers, and anyone interested in Catholicism, as well as human rights advocates and researchers. According to Michael Olteanu, Executive Director of Christus Rex et Redemptor Mundi, “Christus Rex is usually known for its Vatican images. Few people know that we have added 6 image collections on the Holy Land (Pater Noster, Via Crucis, Holy Sepulcher, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Caphernaum), comprising over 1000 images. We are in the process of building a unique collection of manuscript reproductions (over 2500 pages) dealing with the Oriental Crusades and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.” You will also find an elegant collection of the Duc de Berry illuminated manuscripts, a collection of Giotto frescoes, and another collection of images from the four rooms of Raphael’s frescoes known as “The Raphael Stanze.”
The official Vatican Web Site of the Holy See offers very few art images; and those are used primarily to highlight their current or upcoming exhibits. Therefore, as the unofficial virtual “Vatican art museum,” Christus Rex is a treasure. Other virtual museums may have flashier formats and better graphic layouts; but, of course, the real treasures are the art works themselves. Having viewed many of the masterpieces included in the Christus Rex site firsthand, I would be the first to acknowledge that viewing the original is always better. However, the virtual presentation at Christus Rex is the next best thing for anyone not willing or able to hop on a plane to Rome. With thousands of images, including over 1300 images of paintings, sculptures, architecture from the vast holdings of the Vatican, Christus Rex is truly a wonder, not only for quantity and quality, but for depth, breadth, and scope of the selected images. Many images are accompanied by text.
Also available at this site is a impressive collection of information related to the Catholic church, including various encyclical letters, papal speeches, and church documents, plus several versions of the Bible and a link to the official Vatican Web site. Also featured are news and information items on human rights situations and efforts around the globe. The Christus Rex Information Service (C.R.I.S.) publishes several news bulletins in 6 languages and has included articles and news items published in the Italian, Spanish, Mexican, French, Belgian, Portuguese, Brazilian, German, Austrian, Swiss, Israeli, British, Canadian, U.S., and Vatican press. The variety of the Catholic materials and human rights information almost rivals the art.
One of the human rights image collections is a small but powerful group of images from the Tiananmen Square massacre. The images are riveting; but be aware that some of the images of the victims of that violent clash are quite graphic and may be upsetting to children, or even adults.
Christus Rex is very straightforward in terms of style and format with few bells and whistles but with glorious, high resolution art and photographic images. It is very easy to use but the images may take a little while to load. During the usual evening Internet rush hours, my download times (over a 56K line and campus network) ranged from 15 seconds to over 2 minutes, depending on the size of the file. But they are well worth a short wait! Many images are available in different sizes in addition to the usual thumbnail versions. Plus, some have nice enlargements available of details of some art works, which are a great help to serious art students. Christus Rex posts their weekly usage statistics, showing a traffic level any art museum would be glad to have, along with statistics showing the 11,574 most commonly accessed URLs on their server.
Due to the large number of high quality art and photography images representing the full spectrum of the Vatican art collections, it is common to find Christus Rex included on lists of recommended virtual art museums, Christian web sites, and/or general art sites. The widespread popularity of this site is evidenced by one of their pages which lists over 64 icons from organizations, magazines, web surveys, directories, etc. which have honored Christus Rex. I suspect it may be one of the most honored sites on the Web! Lycos Reviews has designated Christus Rex a Top 5% site. WebCrawler has named the site as a WebCrawler Select Site. The McKinley Group has selected them as a Magellan 4‐Star site and NetGuide Live has granted them the Platinum and Gold Site Awards, just to name a few of the accolades the site has received. Spend a few hours browsing and you’ll see why. This site is highly recommended! Bravo Christus Rex!
