By Marilyn Bauer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

With just one week left, Saint Peter and the Vatican: The Legacy of the Popes, the blockbuster exhibition at the Cincinnati Museum Center, has become the most popular exhibit in Cincinnati history.

IF YOU GO

What: Saint Peter and the Vatican: The Legacy of the Popes. When: Through April 18. Where: Cincinnati Museum Center, 1301 Western Ave. Tickets: General admission: $18.50 adults, $9.50 children (ages 3-12), $13.50 seniors; call 287-7001 or www.cincymuseum.org. Best times to visit: Monday to Thursday 1-5 p.m.; Friday: 1-8 p.m.; Saturday: 4-8 p.m.; Sunday: 4-6 p.m.

More than 163,000 people have toured the collection of 350 artifacts and art since its opening on Dec. 20. The Cincinnati showing - the largest North American tour of Vatican holdings - contains items never seen outside Vatican City or put on public display. It spans 2,000 years of papal history and 15,000 square feet of exhibition space.

"It's an exceptionally unique exhibit," says Douglass W. McDonald, president and CEO of the Museum Center. "People understood this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see these artifacts without having to go to Rome."

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibit, mounted by the museum in 2001, was the previous record-holder with 160,000 attendees, surpassing 1997's Jurassic Park, which had 131,672 visitors. The Vatican exhibit has drawn three times the attendance of the previously most popular art exhibit, the Cincinnati Art Museum's 1997 Mistress of House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt.

The most popular piece of the Vatican exhibit is "The Mandylion of Edessa," a piece of linen bearing what is considered to be the oldest image of Christ.

"It's spectacular," says McDonald. Paintings by Bernini and Michelangelo also are popular, as are the ancient fabrics, costumes, tiaras and robes.

McDonald says it's too soon to know the economic impact the show has had on the city, but it will be in the millions. The exhibit's success also will allow the Museum Center to launch more blockbuster shows, he says.

The next show will be The Science of SuperCroc (Web site), featuring the skeleton and fleshed-out model of a 40-foot-long, 17,000 pound, 110 million-year-old crocodile that roamed the Earth at the time of the dinosaurs. The show opens May 29 and runs through Labor Day.