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This exhibition offers an immersion of sight and mind into the exuberant imagery of the collages of Father Costantino Ruggeri (1925-2007), Franciscan friar, priest, and world-famous artist of vast and multiform production. In the links he established between collages and stained glass windows, in many churches in Italy and abroad, the powerful religiosity of his Franciscan spirituality emerges with spontaneous freshness. With the stained-glass windows, for which the collages were largely a preparation, he produced an overflowing and vital river of coloured light, rich in reverberations and mysterious messages, leading to the joyful experience narrated by Dante in Canto XXX of Paradise in the Divine Comedy.

The sequence of wall panels first guides the visitor to a preliminary and synthetic knowledge of the artist, his training, and his arrival at the Pavia convent of Canepanova; it then presents two large sections, one comprising the documentary corpus of collages and the other that of stained-glass windows, separated by the brief interlude of panels dedicated to Matisse and Vence, a master and work of reference that was meditated on for a long time but not imitated. On display in the showcases is a series of collages extracted from the 37 folders in which his father wanted them to be collected. A facsimile of the book he composed, based on a printed publication, to explore the famous Chapel of Vence can be leafed through by visitors. A sketch of a stained-glass window gives an insight into Father Ruggeri's stained-glass construction method. Short films introduce visitors to a first-hand knowledge of the father and the convent world in which he worked. The exhibition is the result of a long-term collaboration with members of the Pavia-based Fondazione Frate Sole and the Studio Ricerca Arte Sacra, heirs to the heritage and custodians of the father's memory. It seemed opportune and advantageous to be able to develop the story of the inventions between collages and stained-glass windows at the same time in two locations, in Pavia and Cesano Maderno, according to a direction that would restore the complementary nature of its contents on the basis of a single interpretative structure, with an appropriate dosage between distinct and identical panels. It was therefore decided to qualify the Pavia 'section' as a workshop exhibition and the one in Cesano Maderno as a documentary exhibition.

Father Constantine liked to perceive and make people perceive the joyful harmony of creation and redeemed men by inventing figures, now easier now more mysterious and always changing, with simple scraps of coloured paper. Like Matisse, he liked to make this childish game with scissors the moment of genesis of an art made of light. Perhaps he realised that, in the game, that joy brought by the angels to the shepherds on the night of the Saviour's birth exploded within him.

The subject was addressed by Father Costantino Ruggeri from the end of the 1970s and throughout the decade of the 1980s in the Franciscan mission of the Burundiwhere he was called upon to build, with architect. Luigi Leoni, three religious and social complexes.

The time spent in Africa was an opportunity to meet a people and one culture which turned out to be rich in extraordinary human valuescelebrating the beauty of the community. From this experience, Father Costantino drew a commitment not to transfer pre-packaged models, foreign to local culture and traditions, and to create spaces with the face and heart of the land in which he was commissioned to design.

He hoped that the contribution made would give rise to new shapes and volumes inspired by the dwellings and ways of life of the Barundi.

Prophetically, he dreamed that on the same continent could be born who, like the winner of the Pritzker Prize 2022 Diébédo Francis Kéréinterpreting the authentic aspirations of the African population, created spaces designed with the sensitivity of the local community in mind.

L'intense cultural exchange allowed Father Constantine to bring with him into his artistic and human life the sensitivity he had developed during his experience in Burundi: it was enough to enter his studio to enjoy the dozens of masks, sculptures and African handicrafts that enlivened the memory of the communities he met.

The Conference 'Culture of encounter - Fr. Constantine's mission in Africa".sponsored by the Municipality of Pavia and ICOMOS PRERICO (Places of Religion and Ritual), will take place Saturday 26 November 2022 from 9:00 to 13:30 in Paviaat the Church of St James and St Philip in Via Luigi Porta.

Speakers will be:

- Luigi Leoni, President of the Brother Sun Foundation;
- Msgr. Luca Bressan, Episcopal Vicar for Culture of the Diocese of Milan;
- Maria Antonietta Crippa, lecturer Politecnico di Milano;
- Fr Roberto Tagliaferri, lecturer at the St Justine Institute of Pastoral Liturgy in Padua;
- Ferdinando Zanzottera, lecturer Politecnico di Milano.

He will moderate Olimpia Niglio, lecturer at the University of Pavia.

At the end of the conference, the Frate Sole Foundation will be pleased to share a convivial moment at theOsteria del Collegioat 8 Via Luigi Porta.