The Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica

Today is our last full day in Rome, and we spent it in Vatican City, the smallest nation and only papal state in the world. We decided to take the plunge and shell out the money for a good tour of the museum and check out the Sistine Chapel, a total cost of 108Euro for the both of us. Sure, a bit pricey over the usual 15Euro entry fee, but our tour guide Lucciana was fabulous... very cheeky sense of humor. I'm just going to give you a play-by-play of the day...

The tickets said we had to get to the meeting point by 9:15 AM for our 9:30 tour, and considering our experience with the 5PM commute home, we opted to leave the campground at 7:45 AM juuuust making it to the meeting point by 9:25. Luckily, they were running a bit behind, so we didn't cause any trouble by showing up a bit late. The ticket insured us a faster entry through security, and the tour guide was pretty much our liason with the museum staff. One of the nice features they offered was a small headset that you could wear so that you didn't need to be in shouting distance from the guide to hear her. It saves her voice, and allows you some freedom to move around the galleries and still hear what she has to say. It also acted somewhat like a homing beacon... if I got too far behind taking pictures, the signal would start to break up and I knew I had to pick up the pace.

Soooo, let me start with how ridiculous the Vatican museum is. The building itself is a museum, and Lucciana was great about sharing stories of how the popes of the Renaissance and beyond improved and redecorated the building. It's essentially a fortress... the walls outside the Vatican are 10 feet thick as well as the walls for the building itself. There are lots of courtyards and walkways scattered throughout the museum each housing their own precious collections (usually marble statues). Each room had to be admired for all of its surfaces... the Church spared no expense for beautiful mosaic floors, and complex frescos on the walls and ceilings covering every available inch.

We started at a balcony which provided the best view of St. Peter's Dome. The original design of the basilica was in the shape of a Greek cross (much like a plus sign), but was changed later on to the Latin cross. As a result, much of the outside of the dome cannot be seen from St. Peter's Square because the facade of the basilica blocks the view. From there we moved to an outside courtyard where we were lectured on the frescos of the Sistine Chapel, its history, and its restoration.

For my PT folks, Michelangelo painted the entire chapel himself over the course of 4 years. In order to keep from having to drill into the walls and ceiling for scaffolding, Michelangelo designed an arched scaffolding that covered about 1/3 of the ceiling at a time. It lay 7 feet from the ceiling itself, so rather than painting the frescos lying on his back (which was the practice), he painted it standing up, looking overhead, reaching up. Can you imagine the rotator cuff on this guy? 10-16 hrs/day, 6 day/week x 4 years? Among his apparent acquired injuries were, of course, back and neck pain, and temporary blindness. Eeeesh.

We started to then make our way through the collections. Hope you enjoy the photos.

The Sphere Within The Sphere, donation to the Vatican

Apollo Belvedere. This was considered the ultimate display of beauty, and was the inspiration for several Renaissance artists.

Laocoön and His Sons, the original.

This gallery, called simply

"The Map Room or the Gallery of Maps, was named after the 40 topographical maps of the regions of Italy, and of the Church's possessions that Gregory XIII had painted here between 1580 and 1583. These maps constitute and extremely important record of 16th century geography and cartography." Borrowed text from http://touritaly.org/tours/vaticanmuseum/Vatican03.htm, but my photo. The room is over 300 feet long.

Image of Jesus from a Belgian tapestry; this portion is probably 6 feet tall. The entire tapestry is REALLY big. Thank you random photo album for the link.

Floor tile mosaic with rare lapis lazulei (just a portion of the floor in the museum... sheesh)

One of several painted ceilings in the Raphael Rooms

"Deliverance of St. Peter" - Raphael Room fresco

Portion of "The School of Athens" in one of the Raphael rooms

Our tour guide

After making our way briefly through the modern collection, it was on the Sistine Chapel. We had been warned that the Swiss Guard was very strict on their rules of silence in the chapel, as well as NO photography. Restoration of the chapel occurred, I believe, in the 90s, and the Vatican of course wanted to reduce the stress to Michelangelo's frescos as well as respect the sanctity of the chapel itself. When we got there, however, people were clipping off photos right and left, flashes filling the room, and a steady buzz of conversation hung in the air. The doors out of the chapel were locked, and the chapel was super crowded. Apparently, French president Sarcozy was meeting with the pope, and the general entrance for such a meeting was right outside the chapel. The Guards at this moment were more concerned about security for the president than people snapping off a couple thousand pictures. We, however, followed the rules for photos but did take advantage of the volume of the room to learn more about the chapel.

From there, we made our way out to the front of the Basilica to view St. Peter's Square. The tour ended there, and Sean and I made our way into the Basilica. Here are some photos...

St. Peter's Basilica from the terrace of the Vatican Museum... the best viewing place. The dome in Florence was Michelangelo's primary inspiration for his design.

The basilica from St. Peter's Square

Michelangelo's Pietà

One of several larger-than-life marble statues in the basilica

Smaller chapel alter

The inside of the actual dome

Like, WOW! "There's GOLD in them there hills!"

I read somewhere that the entire Statue of Liberty could fit under the dome in the Basilica. Having see it first hand, I believe it. Security was not allowing people to get close to the alter and under the dome, so these are the best images I have. I'm sorry to say that after Vienna, Florence, and Rome, Sean and I were pretty museum'ed out so we didn't stick around to look at more of the collection. And it was hard to look around the Basilica and not see some of the political power-plays at work. “Yes, I'd like a statue. Ummm... well, not too big. I mean, definitely bigger than my predecessor, and definitely larger than life-like... but make sure I look humble... pious... and sitting at the right hand of Jesus. And angels should be straightening my robes, and Mother Mary massaging my shoulders. Yeahhhhh...” Don't get me wrong, it's amazing to look at, and I recognize my own streak of pessimism... sorry. But it's HUGE!! And CRAZY!! You wonder if there is any marble left in all the world! I can understand why Martin Luther might have gotten a teensy bit upset, but we can talk about that later.

Anywho, there's the Vatican update. I'm really glad we went, but I'm REALLY ready to get out of Italy. Tomorrow is the beach, and then we take the ferry over the Barcelona. Secondary to poor planning on our part, we will not be visiting Sardinia. Hopefully we'll be better at posting in Spain. Caio!!