‘The cultural crisis of Europe, the newly-won freedom of the east-European countries and the ethics clashes of recent years oblige us to ask ourselves the questions. What is Europe? What distinguished it? Where do its historical and cultural roots lie? This exhibition, organized by Professor Nyssen, means to constitute an appeal to the people of the East and the West to rediscover in European origins; origins which coincide with conversion of the barbarians to Christianity: Franks, Carolingians, Thuringians and Saxons, Goths and Lombards, all found a new form of being in Christianity. To look al the Christian tradition, at the culture it generated, at the art forms that have sprung from it, means to try and regain possession of our origins as an event still alive, and re-utilize this event in the present. The photos making up the exhibition show buildings, sculptures and images of the Christian art of the first European peoples. They are an invitation to visitors to meditate and show just how deep the encounter of the people of the West was with the Christian message and with the shapes and forms through which it was represented. By means of those art forms we can recognise the strength of the Christian message, a force which now, as then is directed toward the future, of the East, the West, Europe and the entire world.’