The Vatican Museum

Adam and Eve in the Garden by Peter Wenzel

Adam and Even in the Garden...seems like a good place to begin our post about the Vatican Museum.  The museum is 500 years old and has collections spanning 5000 years of human history.  It is magnificently overwhelming - sort of like the Louvre.  It is too huge to appreciate in one visit (or maybe even ten) all that this museum offers.  We've put together a few photos to give you an idea of the grandeur of the building and its collections.  Ranging from Egyptian mummies to ancient glass, from paintings to sculpture and maps, Greek vases and tapestries, it just goes on and on from the grandest ceilings to the simplest pottery, there is something here for everyone to enjoy.

As if that isn't enough, after touring the museum you come to the Sistine Chapel. The personal chapel of the Pope, Michelangelo spent four years painting his depiction of life up to the time of Jesus.  If there is a word more magnificent than magnificent, more overwhelming than overwhelming, than it describes the Sistine Chapel.  (Alas, photographs are not allowed in the chapel.)  All we can say is that if you are ever in Rome be sure to make a reservation and spend a day at the Vatican.  You won't be disappointed.

Ceiling detail from the Hall of the Muses

Wealthy families would commission small religious paintings for their homes.
This piece is about 18 inches tall.  There are dozens of examples in the Vatican's Iconography collection.

It is hard to believe that glass could survive from the first century.

Although this simple pottery pales in comparison to the more elaborate pieces in the Vatican's collections,
they are some of the oldest items in the museum.  From Syria - Palestine they date to 8500 B.C. - 3000 B.C. 

The Belvedere Apollo
Brought to the Vatican by Pope Julius II in 1508.

The ceilings in the Vatican Museum are works of art in their own right.
This is a depiction of Scenes from the Life of Moses and Aron painted between 1561-1563.
Pius IX had his coat of arms added to the work at a later date.

This simple elegant room houses the Greek pottery collection.  

Examples of the intricate floor mosaics - each piece of tile is less than one half inch square.

Sculpture abounds in the museum, including an entire hall devoted to animals.

The Gallery of Maps, created in 1581, is 120 meters in length.

The last three photos are from a group of four rooms called the Rafael Rooms.  (Not all were painted by Rafael so the name is a bit misleading...) These rooms were the personal living quarters for the popes of the Renaissance.

Rafael Rooms

The Constantine Room was painted by Rafael (and his assistants) in the 16th century. 

Ceiling detail from the Rafael Rooms.

Rome Sightseeing

Sculpture outside the Capitoline Museum

Exploring Rome

Surprisingly, Rome is an easy city to see on foot.  The old city, contained within the walls, can be walked from end to end in about an hour.  In the four days we were there we never felt the need to take a taxi or use public transportation.  We like to walk when we can.  It places us within, rather than looking at, the scenes we view and allows us to travel at a pace where we can really observe what is around us.  Of course an excellent reason to walk around Rome is so you can stop here and there for a coffee or a gelato.  And, even better, it's guilt free gelato after all that walking!

The big sites of Rome are evident, but it's the little details that add so much to experiencing the city.

Legend is that Rome was founded by brothers Romulus and Remus,
two orphaned twin brothers raised by a she-wolf.  

Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona - Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain with the church of St. Agnes in the background.

The Victor Emmanuel Monument was built in honor of Italy's first king
and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the country's unification in 1870.

The Pantheon was originally built in 27 A.D. (reconstructed in 120 A.D.) as a temple to all the gods.
The 40 foot high columns are made from single pieces of solid granite taken from an Egyptian temple.
The dome is a perfect 142 high and wide with the base being 23 feet thick and gradually reducing to 5 feet at the top.
It served at the model for future domes such as St. Peters.

Rome has more sights to see than the ancient ones. 

The daily morning market at Campo de' Fiori

If we were zipping by in a taxi we'd never get this pretty photo.

The Trevi Fountain - legend has it that if you throw pennies over your shoulder
and into the fountain, you will return to Rome.  Probably better odds on the Trevi than the lotto!

St. Peter's Basilica

St. Peter's Basilica
Donato Bramante was the original architect but Michelangelo (at age 71)
was persuaded by the Pope to add the famous dome.

We didn't plan to be in Rome for Easter week...it just sort of happened.  But apparently lots of folks did plan to see the Vatican and attend the first Easter mass given by the new Pope Francis.  Lines to visit St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum stretched for blocks.  We owe a debt of gratitude to Rick Steves for the recommendation in his Rome guidebook to make reservations ahead of time for the museum and the Sistine Chapel.  With reservations in hand, we bypassed everyone and went directly in. That was great - especially because it was raining!  Unfortunately, that option doesn't exist for visiting St. Peters Basilica and we opted for skipping the long lines waiting to enter with a plan to return early the next morning. It was a good plan.  There were few people at that time of day and we were able to see it at our leisure.  The choir was practicing and hearing their beautiful voices in the background enhanced the heavenly atmosphere of the enormous church.

St. Peter

St. Peter's was built in 313 when Christianity was legalized by the Emperor Constantine. The church was built on the site where St. Peter was buried and his remains continue to rest some 23 feet under the main alter.  The St. Peter's you see today isn't the same one that was built in 313. It only lasted a mere 1200 years!  In 1500, construction began on the new basilica, the one we have today.

On each side of the main basilica curved porticoes were added 100 years later by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
There are 142 columns topped by 70 ten foot tall saints on each wing.
The obelisk is Egyptian and is 2000 years old. The spoils of war, it was brought to Rome by the Emperor Caligula.
It was later installed at St. Peter's square in 1586. 

The area of the church is equal to six acres (two football fields in length).
All the chairs you see have been added in preparation for Easter mass.
We've read that the church can accommodate 60,000 standing people.

One of the first things you see when you enter St. Peters is Michelangelo's Pieta.
He was 24 years old when he sculpted it and it is the only work that he ever signed.
Religious or not, art lover or not, this emotional sculpture will move you.

The dome Michaelangelo designed soars 448 feet from the floor.  

Bernini's bronze canopy over the marble alter used only by the pope.
The canopy is a deceiving seven stories in height.
 In the background is the dove window also designed by Bernini.

Alter of St. Jerome

Baptismal Font

We wish we could tell you more about the next few photos, but even a search of the Vatican's own website fails to identify much of the art and sculpture in St. Peters.

To give sense of scale, the letters in the gold band are seven feet tall.

Details from the dome in the photograph above.

The Swiss Guard's uniforms seem perfectly in style for the setting.

    

All Roads Lead to Rome

Colosseum with view of passageways below the arena floor where there were
80 different lifts to transport props, animals and Gladiators to the main stage.

What better place to begin our few days in Rome than with a visit to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.  We opted for a guided tour and we were very glad that we did.  Not only were we able to bypass the long lines waiting to purchase tickets, but we were treated to a crash course in Roman history that brought these piles of rock and ruin to life in our imaginations.  

We began at the Flavian Amphitheater, a.k.a. the Colosseum, and learned about the daily spectacles of death that 50,000 Romans watched for entertainment.  It's a spectacular structure, a marvel of engineering, but with a sad history of overwhelming violence. The auditorium opened with a 100 day festival (A.D. 80) in which 2,000 men and 9,000 animals were slaughtered and the "games" continued for another 500 years.

Via Sacra

Next we toured the Roman Forum and walked along the Via Sacra, once Rome's main street.  It was here that Mark Antony's processions paraded triumphantly returning from conquering far away lands and Julius Caesar walked to the Curia to meet with the 300 elected senators representing the people of Rome.  We strolled by what remains of temples once as large as football fields and learned about the the plethora of gods and goddesses the Romans worshiped before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion.  We stood at the foot of the Rostrum where for centuries orators spoke to the citizens of Rome and we saw the site upon which Julius Caesar's body burned after he was stabbed to death by his fellow senators. 

A walk down the Via Sacra is akin to walking through 1000 years of history - Rome once ruled the entire Western world and it all began and ended right here.  

Arch of Constantine

The Forum's main square where the Rostrum was located.  The Arch of Septimius Severus is center
and the Curia (senate building) is the structure on the far right.

 

The Temple of
Emperor Antoninus Pius and Faustina

      

Interior details from the Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina

Temple of Vesta

Caligula's palace remains - each emperor tried to out palace the prior and Caligula was no exception.

The Column of Phocas, a gift from the conquering Byzantine Empire, was the Forum's last monument.

"In 476, the last emperor checked out, switched off the lights, and plunged Europe into centuries of poverty, ignorance, superstition, and hand-me-down leotards - the Dark Ages..."
                                                                Rick Steves