07_23_09_The Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums_01

The Musei Vaticani, inside the Vatican City walls is one of the greatest museums on the world, with a wide selection of different collections, from Egyptian antiquities to Raphael’s frescoes. It drew over four million visitors in 2008. The Gallery of Maps is one of my favorite areas. It is a long hallway leading to the Sistine Chapel with topographical maps of all 40 regions of Italy, flanked by windows with beautiful views of the Belvedere courtyard. All of the maps were painted by Ignatius Danti, which took over 3 years to complete. The Sistine Chapel is the most popular attraction in the Vatican Museums and consists of what is probably Michaelangelo’s greatest works, with both the ceiling frescoes which took four years to complete and his painting of the Last Judgement. The chapel is named after Pope Sixtus IV who restored the chapel about thirty years before Michaelangelo would complete the ceiling. The Sistine Chapel was used for religious reasons, but is now best known to house the Papal Conclave, which takes place when the cardinal’s elect a new pope. Hercules of the Theatre of Pompey, is a unique, full-size gilded bronze statue, with a storied past. I think it is unique from most of the ancient statues that we’ve seen, in its bronze patina and what it depicts. The towering statue shows Hercules holding a wooden club, with the skin of the defeated Nemean Lion resting on his other arm. It is from the early second century and was discovered in 1864 after it was previously buried under tiles, as was the custom for objects struck by lightning.
Peter Stevens, Survey of Art and Architecture, St. John’s University

The Vatican Museums_02

In my third week in Rome we went to the Vatican museum. It is located inside the Vatican City and was established in 1506 by Pope Julius II. The “Musei Vaticani” by it name in Italian, is one of the greatest museums in the world and has an enormous collection of Roman Catholic Church items that were collected throughout the centuries. We walked around the whole museum and the two most important things we saw there were the Sistine Chapel and Raphael’s Rooms. The Sistine Chapel is the official residence of the Pope in the Vatican City and it is so famous because it has some frescos painted by the greatest Renaissance artist like Michelangelo, Bernini, Raphael, and Botticelli. One of the most famous paints is the one created by Michelangelo called the Creation of Adam that represents God in one side and the Humans in the other trying to touch its finger like a symbol that god is giving live to Adam. It was created under the support of Pope Julius II but the Sistine Chapel gets its name from Pope Sixtus IV that restored the Chapel later in between 1477 and 1480. Nowadays, it is used for the Papal Conclave that is the procedure which the new pope is elected. The Raphael’s Rooms or Stanze della Segnatura by its name in Italian, is a series of frescos painted by Raphael to redecorate the existing interiors of the rooms of the papal apartments. Raphael frescoed two rooms and then he died but his assistants continued the two other rooms. The rooms are Hall of Constantine, Room of Heliodorus, Room of the signature, and the room of the Fire in the Borgo. These sequences of paintings are so important because they mark the High Renaissance in Rome.
Bryan Barrera, Survey of Art and Architecture, Berkeley College