Monday, 16 October, St. Peter's and the Vatican Museums

Written 23 January 2024

On Monday, at 8:05 am, we piled into a series of smaller vehicles (because our big bus wouldn't be allowed to get close enough) for the short trip across town and over the river to the Holy See, i.e., the Vatican, where we once again rendezvoused with guide Gian-Luigi, who lectured us on the history of the Vatican and St. Peter's basilica while we stood in line to get through the security check. Security is pretty tight since that crazy Australian back in 1972 who got through that day's laxer check with a hammer under his coat and proceeded to smash chunks off Michaelangelo's Pieta. Basically it was airline rules and no glass containers, but water's okay so long as it's in a plastic bottle. No body scanner, though; just the metal detector. Dress code is shoulders, knees, and everything in between covered (nobody said so, but I assume they mean covered with something you can't see through); men take their hats off, women can leave theirs on.

The line is arranged right in front of the façade of the basilica (shown here both left and right), so you can get all your exterior shots at leisure. G-L also pointed out the papal palace, to one side of the basilica and indicated the window from which the pope waves to the crowds in the square at noon every Sunday, but he reminded us that the current pope has never lived there—he prefers a small apartment in the building housing guests and visitors, on the other side of the basilica.

Written 4 February

Things we learned while standing in line:

• Nero was the emperor who persecuted the christians. He blamed the great fire of Rome on the Christians, and Saints Peter and Paul were among those he condemned to death.
• Peter asked to be crucified upside down, here in this piazza, because he felt unworthy to die in the same manner as Christ.
• 225 years later, Constantine freed the Christians.
• The tomb of Peter became an important place of worship; the basilica was designed in 1500 and built over the tomb in the 1570's. It took 120 years and 11 popes to get ithe whole thing finished. Late in the process, Michelangelo became superintendant of the construction, until his death in 1564. After that, they doubled the length of the nave and kept building. That's when they changed from the basic square church with a dome on top and made it into the Latin cross. The dome was finished after Michelangelo's death.
• Sundays at noon, the pope waves from a window to the people in the square.
• In the 16th century, the pope surrendered himself to invaders (under Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, I think) on the condition they stop vandalizing the art; the church then paid a large ransom to get him back.
• To become a Swiss guard, you have to be a Swiss citizen and Catholic. Switzerland trains good soldiers, but doesn't have a standing army and has never fought a war, so it exports mercenaries.
• In the right-hand photo above, you can see two pairs of large video screens. The right-hand large one is at the right-hand edge of the photo, and the other large one is at the symmetrical position just over the heads of our group. A pair of smaller ones flanks the steps of the basilica, and each of those is topped by a large marble statue. I think he said the one on the left if Paul and the one on the right is Peter. Other apostles stand in a row on the roof across the front of the facade, and popes continue around the rest of the roof line.
• The shroud of Turin is in Turin, not in Rome, and it's technically owned by the former royal family, not the church.
• One of the doors to the basilica is called the "holy door" and is opened only during jubilee years (every 25 years, I think).

Getting inside took less than the hour Anna had predicted. Here are a couple of views of the nave, with Gian-Luigi for scale. The reason he knows so much and is such a good guide is that his father was a guide, and as a child, he spent his nonschool hours following his dad's tour groups, absorbing the often-reported spiels.

This is the best shot I managed to get of the now-restored Pieta. Michelangelo was only 22 when he made it! It's next to the tomb of St. John Paul II. The saint (the Polish pope, who only died in 2005) was originally buried in the crypt, but when he was canonized, his relics were brought up to be placed in the altar in this chapel. John Paul II was extremely influential; he was, for example, the first pope ever to enter a synagogue, where he addressed the rabbi as "my older brother."

Most of the rest of the statuary was by Bernini.

At the right here is the view up into a dome, not the main one, I think. I heard the guide for another group say that the main dome is the same diameter as that of the Pantheon.

At the left here is, or rather was, Rafael's last great work, The Transfiguration of Christ. The church is apparently in it for the long haul. Paintings were not considered permanent enough, so in the 1600's the Vatican established an Academy of Mosaics, which worked from then until the 1920s, eventually replacing all the paintings in the building with mosaics. Only when I walked right up to it and studied the lower edge through binoculars could I make out the tiny tesserae. The actual paintings were moved; some are now in the basilica that's in the old Roman baths. All other images in the basilica are mosaics. The only exception is a small painting of a madonna and child, now framed behind glass, that’s an archeological artefact recently found in the crypt and dating from before construction of the present building.

The most astonishing thing we saw in St. Peter's was the actual body of Pope John XXIII, in a glass coffin. Apparently he isn't even embalmed. The coffin is just so well sealed and the atmosphere inside so empty of oxygen, that no decomposition can take place. He's very pale, but otherwise he looks pretty good! He was a very popular pope, the one who started Vatican II, then died before it really got underway. Prince Ranier of Monaco died within a few days of him. We were in the south of France at the time (on David's sabbatical, and I remember hearing that the coincidence of timing created all kinds of travel-scheduling headaches for the various dignitaries and heads of state trying to attend both funerals.

A rather plain side chapel with a couple of organs was pointed out to us as the chapel of the choir; weddings and things get done there. I was not even tempted to join the long line of people waiting to climb the 551 steps up to the dome. Another side chapel is the one where baptisms are carried out, but the fonts are kept dry since the pandemic.

On altar in the basilica is reserved for the pope, and only he can celebrate mass there. The canopy over it was made by Bernini out of bronze stripped from the Pantheon's coffered ceiling. The last mass of the day is celebrated at the very far end, behind the pope's altar, at 5 pm every day.

Here's the best photo I got of the Swiss guards.

After the basilica, we got some free time for shopping in this mosaic shop before boarding the buses back to the hotel. In addition to mosaics, they would sell you replicas in several sizes of the Pieta and lots of other statuary.

Most of their wares ran to the sort of thing shown here at the left, not really to my taste.

But I was sort of tempted by these lovely Van Gogh irises. Van Gogh did paint a few things that I like.

But as usual, we didn't actually buy anything.

Back at the hotel, we were turned loose to forage for our own lunch. David and I walked a block over to the Via Veneto to read menus and wound up at Harry’s Bar Roma (where La Dolci Vita was filmed).

In general, I wasn't that impressed with the breads we were served in Italy, but these little puffy deep-fried bread crackers were interesting.

We started by splitting this plate of smoked salmon with a little cream cheese, a few leaves of mache, toast triangles, and paper-thin slices of green apple.

Then David ordered this bowl of something bright red. From the color, and knowing David's tastes, I'd guess gazpacho. Bowl of croutons on the side.

Meanwhile, I had this plate of bright-green pasta. I neglected to photograph the menu, and I don't remember how the pasta was described, but it was very good.

For his main course, David ordered this plate of something grilled rare. Again, seeing the fruit all over the plate and knowing David's taste, I'd say duck.

My main course was salmon, and very good it was, too. The green stuff scattered over the top was a shower of paper-thin, deep-fried zucchini chips.

For dessert, we split a freshly baked individual apple tart. It rests on a pool of vanilla custard, and the ice cream accompanying it is sitting on a thin slice of fresh apple.

Throughout the meal, we were entertained by the screeching flock of bright green rose-ringed parakeets that have established a colony in the southern magnolias that line the street.

We had the afternoon free, but it was raining off and on, so we spent it at the hotel, resting up for the evening's activities. Then, at 6:15 pm, we assembled in the lobby to reboard our minivans for the trip to see the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel.

Written 5 February 2024

The Vatican Museum closes at 6:30 pm, but Tauck had arranged a special after-hours guided visit for us. We were told not to bring our Tauck listening devices, because the Vatican insists everone use theirs. By the time we got there, the place had been cleared of visitors. We went in through what is usually an exit, went up three flights of stairs then a really long escalator, and assembled in a modern lobby to get our listening devices, meet our Vatican guide, and hear an introductory talk.

This striking statue graces the area where we waited. I never found a label on it.

The museum usually gets 35,000 visitors per day, and (even though it consists of 4 miles of galleries and has 10,000 exhibition rooms), at peak times, it's filled pretty much elbow to elbow, but we were there among about 70 other people, in three widely separated Tauck groups. Anna wisely volunteered for us to start third of the three, so we could take our time and not be pushed from behind by some other guide. But a second Vatican guide followed our group, ensuring that stragglers kept up and that no one ducked aside and hide so as to stay over night.

We started with this model of the Vatican City. In the left-hand photo is the side toward the river, with the main gate to St. Peter's Square. You can see the main dome of the basilica just below the pointing hand.

As I understand it, as you stand in the square, facing the basilica's façade, the papal palace is to the right of the basilica, and the building where the current pope actually lives is to its left. In the angle between the palace and the basilica is the tall rectangular roofline of the Sistine Chapel, parallel to the nave (behind the line of apostles across the top of the façade but forward of the pair of smaller domes.

The right-hand photo shows the other side, away from the river—mostly gardens and smaller buildings. The Vatican has its own train station and a helipad. The only people who can live there are the Swiss Guards and clergy who contribute in a religious sense to the operation of the churches.

What surprised me most about the Vatican, though, is how recent it is. Up until Italy was unified in the mid 19th century, there were "papal states" scattered around the peninsula and occupying a fair amount of it—areas "owned" by the pope. With unification, though, Italy annexed all those areas, leaving the pope with nothing but the St. Peter's basilica and his palace. For many years popes complained of being "prisoners in their own palace," until 1929, when Mussolini (in exchange for recognition by the pope) signed the Lateran Treaty, giving the pope just over 100 acres as an independent state. Who knew?!

Even though got only a walk-through, along a fixed route that covered only a fraction of its holdings, we were shown an amazing variety of stuff. Through a window we passed, I got this shot of a glistening rain-slicked courtyard with shadowy trees and the basilica's dome in the background.

At the right is an ancient mosaic floor, Greek I think. Nearby were huge dark-red stone sarcophagi (4th century AD) and a plethora of Greek and Roman statuary.

A striking example is this statue of Artemis draped with, um, parts cut from sacrificial bulls.

Another is this protrayal of Britannicus, son of the emperor Claudius. He died at age 14, supposedly poisoned by his step-brother Nero, because he rivaled Nero's claim to the emperorship.

A long gallery was entirely lined with such statuary, much of it of Greek origin but brought to Rome during the empire. Quite a large proportion of the statues were headless, because looters found it easier to break off, steal, and resell just the heads.

The building itself was definitely worth the visit, independently of its contents. Here are two beautiful ceilings we passed under.

And here are two more. The one at the right is the ceiling of the map gallery. Pope Gregory XIII (he of the Gregorian calendar again) commissioned the map collection in this gallery. It took from the 1580's to the 1620's to assemble the maps and to paint all the amazing little pictures on the ceiling.

The map gallery heavily features Italy and its regions, though other areas are also represented. Here are two of the large, hand-painted maps that show the whole peninsula. Others zeroed in on particular regions, in much greater detail. Like many other things we saw, that gallery alone would have been worth the visit.

One of its features was the very first map of North American, made by by Verazzano.

One long gallery we walked thrugh, was lined with closed cabinets. The guide said it had been the library and that it once housed desks and was always full of people writing. Now the cabinets remain closed and the the books are kept elsewhere.

At the left here, another mosaic floor, this one Roman, I think.

The guide took us through a whole series of "Rafael rooms," lined with the painter's works—commissioned by Pope Julius II for this site, not gathered from elsewhere for display here. One of the rooms in the series was Julius's private office.

At the right is Rafael's first great work—Aristotle in the School of Athens. Socrates, Archimedes, Euclid, and Plato are also in it. Rafael used real people as models for these personages. For example, Janos Angalo is Aristotle, Leonardo is shown as Plato. Rafael's own self portrait appears as a young man on the right-hand side.

Rafael did not initially paint Michelangelo into the picture. He added him later after seeing the sistine chapel—he may have been ordered to or may have done it on his own. Michelangelo is the depressed person in the foreground, writing on a piece of paper and wearing boots.

The other Rafael rooms all feature these large arch-shaped paintings, including The Fire in the City and a large equestrian battle. One shows angels appearing in the sky to tell Constantine that he'll win the battle if he turns Christian, so he had his soldiers put crosses on their shields, and sure enough, they won.

In addition to paintings and classical sculpture, the museum houses a huge collection of other objects, like this family of swans portrayed in porcelain.

I was struck by this large magnificant vase with a stunning depiction of an autumn Virginia creeper vine on it.

At the end of the tour, we visited the Sistine Chapel, so named because it was commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV, designed by his military engineer. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed in the chapel, but we were free to wander around in it for half an hour, just the 26 of us. Anna remarked that she had never seen the floor of the Sistine Chapel before, because it’s usually packed shoulder to shoulder. (For the record, it was just black and white tile.).

In 1482, great Florentine artists came to decorate it—Botticelli, Signorelli, and others. I'm pretty sure the guide said that a 13-year-old Medici kid was made a cardinal in exchange (or gratitude) to his father for sending all those artists to work on the chapel. Anyway, that kid grew up to be Pope Leo X at the age of 36, the first of four Medici popes.

But it was Julius II (the Rafael fan, actually Sixtus IV's nephew) who employed Michelangelo to paint the chapel's ceiling. Michelangelo didn't want to do it, hated doing it, resisted, walked off the job (for three years!), changed the original design, etc. But eventually he finished it, and it really is magnificent. In the 1980's the paintings were restored and cleaned.

Eventually, after we'd had time to wander around in, and then simply to sit and gaze at, the Sistine Chapel, we were led to a building in the pope's garden for a light buffet supper, consisting mostly of little appetizery things. The venue is apparently the museum's café during working hours, but we (the three Tauck groups) had it to ourselves.

At the left is an endwise view of the buffet line, where servers loaded your plate with whatever you indicated.

At the right is my plate, piled with breads, three kinds of croquettes, cold cuts, a little lasagne, a little eggplant parm . . .

Wine ad lib on the tables.

Then it was time to exit by walking down this very long spiral ramp to the door where we came in, to get back into the minibuses and head back to the hotel.