Mary Queen of Families Chapel

Commissioned by the important Italian artist Mimmo Paladino (b.1948) The Chapel includes a ceiling mosaic, a stained-glass window, and incised wall frescos replete with rich symbolic references to the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, and Catholic liturgy, the Congregation of the Holy Cross, and the natural terrain and indigenous people of this region. For this commission, Paladino studied the history of Marian imagery, the University of Notre Dame, and the local landscape to prepare for the project. His goal was to connect the present and past around the imagery of the Virgin Mary, thus animating the collections in the Museum in an authentic way. The chapel brings together significant paintings from the thirteenth and early sixteenth centuries together in dialog with art by Paladino to celebrate millennia of tradition that link the history of the Catholic Church and the history of art.