This morning we left our hotel right after breakfast catching the Metro at the nearby station. We took it west across the Tiber river and walked towards Vatican City. We immediately are reminded that pre-modern popes were also kings. Vatican City is essentially the fortified mother castle of the former Papal States. We walked past a minor Papal castle in Ostia a few days ago.
We immediately run into huge lines. I bought tickets a month ago for the second earliest time thinking it would be less crowded. I was wrong. You also have to provide specific names on the tickets. In my haste with their quirky website, I added Aimee’s name twice, so I ended up buying a third ticket in my name. I needn’t have bothered. There is too much chaos for the guards to really check IDs. Aimee said to consider it a donation to the church.
The chaos doesn’t lessen once inside. The Vatican Museum is a complex of dozens of museums most of which few people are interested or have the time for. (Except for me). They are housed in a mishmash of ancient and modern buildings. The museum route is mostly one-way with periodic detours to see a particular museum. If you miss the detour, you miss that section. Like all of Italy signage is poor. The electronic map is unreadable.
We start off with the Egyptian section. It is mediocre. There are a couple rooms on the Assyrians. Also skipable. The action heats up in the Octagonal Courtyard which has some of the best sculpture in each corner surrounded by lots of secondary works. The finest is the Laocoon. It was dug up in Rome in 1506 likely from Nero’s Golden House we explored yesterday. This classical masterpiece was an instant sensation and was the beginning of this museum. The sculpture’s inherent emotional tension inspired the Renaissance artists of the day (eg Michelangelo). Other highlights are Apollo Belvedere, Perseus with the head of Medusa, and a sarcophagus with Greeks vs Amazons.
Our path next takes us to the Hall of Animals which is a strange collection. We do laugh when we see another Mithras piece. There is also some nice mosaic floor panels. By accident I look up and notice the ceiling. I have to remember that the Vatican Museums are a two-fer. Much of this art collection is inside the old Papal Palace.
The next room is the Rotonda which has an immense red porphyry basin atop a beautiful mosaic floor surrounded by statues.
Next is the Sarcophagus Room. It is dominated by two red porphyry crypts that held the mother and daughter of Constantine. Only an Emperor could afford this rarest and hardest of stones.
We saw the cutoff to the Etruscan Museum and we had this site almost to ourselves. The Etruscans were the mysterious residents of early Tuscany. Scientists still can't decipher their language so little is understood about them. They were obviously very sophisticated as the artifacts (eg bronze candlesticks) are high quality. I would have liked to have slowed down here but this museum is too big to allow anything but quick glances. I am always surprised at the quantity of large vases and urns these early Mediterranean cultures accumulated.
Our path next took us down the lengthy hallway. It is divided into three long sections. The Candelabra Gallery is lined with sculpture. The walls and ceiling are equally impressive.
It continues with another long hall of Tapestries. We like the Assassination of Caesar the best. The ceiling looks like a cameo setting. It is so well done, Aimee and I can’t tell if it is 3D or not.
We continue into my favorite, the Map Hall which is one of the few spots I remember from my whirlwind visit 42 years ago. It would be cool just with the medieval Italian maps that line the walls. But the vaulted ceiling full of paintings makes it a spectacular wonder. The museum crowd surges in large waves. Surprisingly if you linger you find nice gaps in the tourist flow that make this Vatican experience sometimes a bit better.
The crowd condenses and slows again when we hit the popular Raphael Rooms. These several small rooms intended to be a Suite of apartments for Pope julius II. Thy are completely covered in frescos. The most famous is the School of Athens which has all the Renaissance painters posing as Greek philosophers. We notice some ‘grotesque’ figures Rapheal added after seeing Domus Aurea by candlelight.
Usually the finale of the Museum visit is the Sistine Chapel. It is definitely a highlight seeing the ceiling painted by Michelangelo, after he was inspired by the newly found Laocoon. Aimee and I sit on a back pew for several minutes and contemplate this great work. Well Aimee might actually be people watching.
Since we are not part of a guided tour that can use a secret entrance into St Peters, we must navigate the long corridor back to the beginning. It has few artifacts but is strangely lined with thousands of cabinets.
Along the way we spot a room with ancient frescoes. Several were found at the ancient port of Ostia we visited earlier. We also visit a section that has some more modern art pieces like Salvador Dali and Marc Chagall. Not sure how they got in this papal collection.
Back near the entrance, we make an effort to visit some of the miscellaneous collections we missed. We visit the Lapidarium that has a sprawling collection of funereal art. At this point even I am getting tired of sarcophagi. One motif that piques my curiosity is the prevalence of sheep (and the Good Shepherd) on many. Like many traditions we consider Christian, many or even most were originally Roman pagan practices that were adapted.
We ran through the Pinacoteca art gallery. It starts with the traditional religious art of stilted figures on a gold background.
It is visually stunning how the Renaissance changed art so drastically as we move past Raphael’s Transfiguration to one of Caravaggio’s instantly recognizable works.
I know we missed some sections of the Vatican Museum, but we are exhausted. We have a pizza lunch in their cafeteria and leave via the Bramante double helix stairs and are back on the street.
It is a long walk around the fortress walls of the Vatican to reach St Peters Square. There's crowd control barricades everywhere. We can’t get close to the Egyptian obelisk in the center.After looking around, we join a very long line to get inside.
St Peters is the largest church in the world. It is enormous. There are markings on the main aisle comparing it to other famous churches we have visited. We first see Michelangelo’s Pieta that is now behind bullet proof glass after the hammer attack in 1972. We walk around the main altar with its Bernini-designed Baldacchino and then head to the exit. We pass on the dome climb.
On the way out Aimee finally spots two of the Swiss Guards in their distinctive uniforms. They are the first we came across
We followed the pope’s fortified walkway (Borgia Passage) out to Castel Sant'Angelo. This started out as Hadrian's Tomb but was repurposed into a castle for the pope. The pope hid out here for 59 years after the 1870 Risorgimento (Italian Unification) never leaving the Vatican until he finally surrendered in 1929.
We follow the Tiber river east and mosey our way back to the hotel. We finally go up to the rooftop bar and have our welcome drink, a week late.
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