Columbus murals

In 1874, founder and former university president Edward Sorin visited the Vatican and hired Luigi Gregori, an artist-in-residence there, to be an art professor at Notre Dame.[1] An 1879 fire destroyed the campus's Main Building, but it was rebuilt during that summer; two years later, Sorin commissioned Gregori to create a collection of artwork to decorate the first floor of the new Main Building.[2]

In the nineteenth century, Americans thought of Columbus as a heroic figure and a symbol of independence, progress, and faith, which went along with the manifest destiny movement.[3] Columbus was also an appealing figure to Notre Dame's faithful population, as Catholics had rallied behind the him as a rare Catholic contributor to the mostly Protestant history of the US.[3] The figure also helped fight the nineteenth-century nativism movement, particularly against Italian Americans, and anti-Catholic sentiment—stemming from the view that Catholics were loyal to the pope before their country.[4][5]

Gregori painted the twelve-piece series of murals from 1881 to 1884, completing each one as funds were donated by faculty and other private individuals.[2][6] He used pigment with casein paint to do his work on the plaster walls.[7]

At the time, scholars disputed Columbus's physical appearance, and no authoritative portrait existed, so Gregori used then-current president Thomas E. Walsh as the model for Columbus's face in all but one mural and Sorin for Columbus on his deathbed.[8][9] Notre Dame faculty and Congregation of Holy Cross members also served as models for other people in the murals.[10][11]

"Columbus Presenting Natives", a Columbian Issue postage stamp based off The Reception at Court

In honor of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the Columbian Issue, a set of sixteen commemorative postage stamps, was created, and the 10¢ stamp was based off The Reception at Court mural.[12]

The murals are each 11 feet (3.4 m) tall, ranging in width from 5.5 to 19 feet (1.7 to 5.8 m).[13]

The murals portray Columbus in a saintly light, and Gregori painted scenes showing Columbus as doing God's work.[14] The Reception at Court depicts Columbus presenting treasures of the New World to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I of Spain: pineapples, nuts, spices, gold figurines, a parrot, as well as several Taíno people.[7][15] The presence of a large number of clergy indicates that the natives are to be baptized. A large crowd watches behind them, and in the background is a fleet of ships.[16]

There are numerous historical inaccuracies in the murals. In The Reception at Court, for example, the natives are depicted holding shields which northern Plains Indians would use and wearing Mandan clothes, whereas Columbus actually encountered the Taíno of the Caribbean.[16] The inaccuracies are attributed to a combination of ignorance (at the time, Native Americans were seen as a monolithic group, rather than a diverse group of tribes)[7] and intentional symbolism (Notre Dame's founding Holy Cross missionaries encountered Plains Natives).[17] Furthermore, Gregori may have drawn inspiration from Notre Dame's own collection of artifacts.[7]

In 1997, a faculty committee created a brochure to offer historical context to the murals, saying that "the University of Notre Dame recognizes that the Columbus murals reflect 19th-century white European views of race, gender and ethnicity which may be offensive to some individuals".[18]

A 2017 letter to the editor of Notre Dame's student newspaper, The Observer, signed by over 300 students, employees, and alumni, called for the murals to be removed. In January 2019, university president John I. Jenkins announced a plan to cover the murals.[19]

• List of monument and memorial controversies in the United States
• List of monuments and memorials to Christopher Columbus

• Columbus Murals – President's Initiatives – Office of the President