The Vatican Museums

So the other day I most likely saw, in seven hours, more famous and beautiful pieces of art than I've seen in my life, though I've been to quite a few museums before.

Starting at 10, we headed to the Vatican Museums which has vast collections of pretty much anything imaginable - from Roman busts to Raphael frescos to Etruscan ironworks.

It was unlike any museum I've ever seen in that it was nearly impossible to tell where the exhibited art ended and the museum itself began. Most modern museums are built around the idea of a showroom: you have special lights, plain walls, and simple space that lets whatever is hanging on the wall to dominate the viewer's thoughts.

At the Vatican, that is anything but the case. For sure, there are rooms with framed pictures hanging on the walls. And those paintings are works by Raphael, Da Vinci, and others with equally recognizable names. And they are stunning. However, the walls are not white, and the rooms themselves have intricate ceiling patterns - often textured with carvings or vibrantly painted or featuring a papal crest - that create a 360-degree experience that keeps your mind from focusing on the masterpiece at hand. Instead, I found myself bewildered at the sheer visual spectacle, with a bit of a sore neck from twisting my head in so many directions.

This hectic display, combined with the throngs of people that were continually herding towards the Sistine Chapel, was at times overwhelming. But trying to just ignore the people and pace myself (I took a lunch break in the courtyard, for instance), it ended up being one of my favorite days of the trip.

As you enter, the museum staff funnels everyone into a more or less circular path that leads through the main antique showrooms and ends up at the Sistine Chapel. I, accidentally, quickly got turned around in a side chamber that housed the Etruscan archeology collections and presented fantastic views of the entire city below. Finding the path again, I wandered through a series of themed rooms.

There was the hall of statues, filled with busts and Roman works. Then I hit the darkened tapestries room – a long hall with ceiling to floor drapery more detailed than the finest frescoes. I would hate to have to weave one of those pieces, which had to have measured 20x40 feet at times, and presented scenes from the life of Christ and the coronations of the Popes. Ridiculous amount of detail.

Following the tapestries was my favorite of the themed rooms: a hall painted with maps! I love maps. It was great fun seeing the various Italian regions – each of which merited their own section of the hall – and finding the places I am either going after class ends or places I have already visited. Best of all was the map of Sicily, which for some reason was painted upside down, but that had sea monsters surrounding its boundaries and a great cartoon of Vulcano erupting. That’s the same volcano I climbed with Geo class in March! But the maps were not the only things of interest in the room – above my head where panels of frescoes painted on the ceiling portraying a huge assortment of Italian and biblical scenes.

The first time I walked through this gallery, I took a wrong turn and ended up prematurely in the Sistine Chapel. Not a bad mistake. It was a sudden change and took a minute to sink in. For some reason I had it in my head that the scene of Adam reaching out to God (and Eve) was the centerpiece of the room, larger than the scenes around it. So it was surprising when I realized that was not the case, but that it was simply one spectacular scene of many. Once my mind adjusted to the reality, however, the ceiling became more and more impressive – the detail is stunning. And it is amazing how, even after frescoes have become a daily part of my summer experience in every church and chapel in the city, Michelangelo’s work rises above them all.

Post Sistine Chapel, I found my way to the exit, which was decidedly not where I wanted to be, given I had only seen half of the museum, if that much. So I wandered through the ancient Roman hall (great mosaics taken from the Baths of Caracalla!), the Vatican post office, and the upper courtyard over looking St. Peter’s, before finding the most unexpected (and unmarked) of the rooms: the hall of carriages.

Pope-mobiles throughout the centuries! These things were awesome – gaudy, golden, gigantic terrors on wheels. They had carved birds and angels, enough horses in tow (wearing red velvet harnesses!) to mount an army, and plush velvet interiors to ensure that none of the fathers were bruised as they were jostled through the streets. Some time, according to the display, the popes switched to Land Rovers, and then finally to the really, really pretty black convertibles that the modern mobile is modeled on.

After a lunch break, I reentered the rounds and discovered so many things I had missed on the first go around. First there was the largest of the many courtyards in the complex. Here there was a connecting passage to the outdoor room featuring the Laocoon, Apollo Belvedere, and several other stunning Roman statues, the best of their collections.

Although I had seen pictures of all of these centerpieces, seeing them in real life was a totally different experience. As a class we had mocked the need of the Grand Tourists’ mandatory viewing of the Laocoon, but now it is indeed the most spectacular statue I have ever seen. No one should miss it while in Rome. The movement and angst that the sculpture brought to the scene is unreal (it is a portrait of a father and his two sons being devoured by snakes) and makes the myth truly convincing. The same dramatic realism and glorification of the human form was evident in the other capolavori.

Failing to mention lots in between, finally there were the Raphael rooms – the instantly recognizable visions of the School of Athens and others. They took up whole rooms! As someone very familiar with the picture of Plato and Aristotle arguing together, surrounded by the other great minds of history, it was shocking to see it in its entirety. It is usually cropped as a rectangular work, but the fresco is unframed and unbounded – it takes up an entire wall. The only reason, I assume, it is cropped is to cut the door out of the picture. The several rooms that he painted were fantastic, and better yet, when I left that area, I was almost in the Sistine Chapel again (which comes after the modern art wing).

In all it was a totally overwhelming day of tough crowds, three cups of coffee and more beautiful art than is possible to absorb in several weeks, let alone seven hours. And by the end I was completely ready for bed, and could count it as one of the best days in Rome so far.