I am at awe of what we did today. Our group got a guided tour of Vatican City – a place that I have been interested in a long time. My father is a Sunday School teacher who loves to compare religions and I am obsessed with all the recent books about religion and art. It was a very exciting day.
The façade of Vatican City Museum is imposing – a twenty foot brick wall separates you from the museum, basilica, and most importantly, the Pope (who was at his summer residence). Our guide was informative and told you everything you wanted to know and even more. She showed us the line where you leave Italy and entered into Vatican City (they are two totally different countries!). We were told why the Popes chose the Swiss to be the ones to protect them but she didn’t explain why they had to wear those outfits. We then went into the museum…
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| The Swiss Guard |
The Vatican has so many pieces of art it is crazy. The museum has a hall of Greek statues, halls of statues, a fountain bowl that is twenty feet in diameter, halls of tapestries, halls of paintings, and two very famous statues. One statues, a nude of Apollo, was Michelangelo’s inspiration for the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. That wall is a beautiful fresco of the Last Judgment, where everyone, even Jesus Christ, is nude. It wasn’t until the Reformation, where the nude figures were not seen as correct church decoration, when all the little figures and all the statues got their needed togas and fig leaves. I would never have noticed that if the guide had not showed us.
As much as the statues and paintings are beautiful, the real jewels of the Vatican are the walls and ceilings of the rooms. Everything is done in fresco. Walls are filled with popes, scenes from the Bibles, patrons of the church, saints, and angels. The figures seem like they are 3D but every surface is perfectly flat. It is an incredible expanse of art. My favorite set of rooms are done by Raphael – they are the old rooms that were used by the Pope before he moved palaces (yes the Pope technically has two palaces now). I loved his fresco of philosophy where all the greats gathered on one wall – Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, and Aristotle, all from different times but sharing the same space. What makes the fresco incredible is that the heads of these men are replaced with those of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Titus. Even Raphael is squeezed in, a small figure in the corner.
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| The two things I love - Raphael paintings and philosophy. |
Our guide left us at the Sistine Chapel, a place where photography and speaking were forbidden. It was eerily quiet, as if someone put a spell onto the masses crammed into the space. All eyes were drawn up to look at the most important four years of Michelangelo’s life – the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I had a rush of emotion come over me – I could not believe that I was standing and looking at one of the most famous works of art in the world. It was amazing.
My exploration of Vatican City led me and my friends to the tombs under St. Peter’s Basilica. It was creepily quiet but very interesting. The popes all had very different tombs. Some had marble effigies on their coffin lids. Some had a plain slab of marble on top of their raised marble coffin. Then a few were actually buried in the ground, a marble slab laying flat on the ground. It was not like any other crypt I have ever been in. We passed the simple, white tomb of John Paul, the past Pope, and it was decorated with flowers left by mourners. The most ornate of all the tombs is right under the main altar of the Basilica. It is the entrance of the tomb of St. Peter, who was buried in an necropolis. The entrance to the crypt is plated in gold and surrounded by marble. Strong, clear glass doors separate the public from the saint’s resting place. Pilgrims from near and far (so many different languages) knelt before the doors with rosary. It was pretty incredible, to see people from different walks of life, countries, economic situations, and beliefs to come together and pray.
St. Peter’s Square was our last stop and it was fun walking around the square to see all the statues atop all the buildings. It was an informative tour and it really helped me look into the Vatican and see what it is.
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| St. Peter's Square... and me! |
The last adventure we had was we went to see the Trevi Fountain for one last time. But this time it was cool. We got there just in time for the sunset and the lights in the fountain to be turned on. I threw in another coin (who needs genies for three wishes when you have the Trevi Fountain). It looked so much different than when we went during the day but it was still as crowded. This was the perfect end to the first leg of this journey.
Ciao!
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