Salvator Mundi greets passengers at Fiumicino airport, which is now even more beautiful

There are airports that have to come up with the most imaginative extravagances to pass the time for passengers. If Singapore built a (beautiful) amusement park like the Jewel, also copied recently in Doha, there are other Stopovers around the world stuffing oddities The spaces between gates.

There are also those who come up with works of art in questionable taste, such as Tampa airport, which has placed a giant flamingo head In the middle of the terminal.

The 'Salvator Mundi': the last work of Bernini

Through collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior's Worship Buildings Fund, the passengers departing from the 15th best airport in the world, will be able to admire Bernini's last work, the 'Salvator Mundi,' the great artist's spiritual testament, made around 1679 and coming from the Basilica of St. Sebastian Outside the Walls. The exhibition is part of the Leonardo da Vinci hub's more general strategy of promoting territorial and national art and culture to Italian and foreign passengers.

The work had been intended for Queen Christina of Sweden, to whom Bernini was bound by deep esteem and friendship. Upon the queen's death, the Bust was donated to Pope Innocent X, but after further passages its traces were lost. It was found in the Roman church only recently, about 20 years ago.

The sculpture depicts Christ blessing at half-length: Christ's face, adorned with long hair, turns to the right and has an expression of great serenity and majesty, while his right hand in the act of blessing approaches his chest to the left.The sculpture, 106 cm. high x 105 wide and 65 thick, is the spiritual testament of the great artist, who by now at the end of his life wanted to deliver to the world his reflections on life and death.

The new square in Fiumicino

Less than a year after the opening of Leonardo da Vinci's boarding area A., the new Terminal 1 boarding area, with a capacity of 6 million passengers departing annually to domestic and Schengen destinations, reopened today.

These are. A state-of-the-art infrastructure equipped with 22 gates, more than half of which are equipped with pontoons for boarding. In line with the investments made by ADR, quality, sustainability and innovation were also focused on for this project. In particular, the interventions made involved all structural and plant engineering components, for a design aimed at maximizing the spaces dedicated to passengers and facilitating their orientation.

In the new boarding area, with a total area of nearly 25,000 square meters, there are 12 new loading bridges for direct boarding on the aircraft, 44 self boarding gates, as well as digital columns integrated into the facilities. A new baggage handling system has also been installed in the arrivals area, with 3 new baggage reclaim belts for an additional capacity of an additional 3 million passengers per year. The infrastructure was built by adopting the most modern environmental protocols, without carrying out any excavation or increasing the existing infrastructure by a single cubic meter and reusing construction materials, also testifying to Italian excellence from an engineering and architectural point of view. Thanks to these interventions, optimal energy performance and reduced consumption compared to the past will be achieved.

The opening of the new facility to the public adds another crucial piece to the revamping of the entire new Terminal 1, with a total investment of 500 million euros, which also includes the opening of the former boarding area C, scheduled before the summer, and the renovation of the former Pier D, which will be started in the coming months.

Restructuring

The facility, which opened in 1991, was closed in July 2020 due to Covid19-induced effects on air traffic. The renovation, which began in October 2022., involved an optimization of operational spaces with the aim of increasing the overall comfort of the terminal. It is with this in mind that the functional layout of the area has been rationalized, providing larger gate spaces, technological improvements and new commercial areas. The completed interventions allow for increased visibility of passenger services, increased brightness of the environments thanks to the use of natural light and wider ceiling heights.