It’s been about a decade since I visited Italy for a week and the highlight of the trip was Rome and Vatican City, every crevice oozing history and grandeur. While the city seems to be overrun with tourists, especially in the summer months when I was there, a simple tour of the Vatican Museums will tell you why.
The Vatican Museums is a collection of museums that was first set up in the 16th century and preserved and expanded over the ages by the Church. They are now so vast & diverse that they’ve been divided into specialized Museums which contain galleries unto themselves for specific myths/ historical periods. The first ever relic of these is the Laocoön and His Sons & can be found in the Museo Pio Clementino to date.
By Hagesandros, Athenedoros, and Polydoros - Marie-Lan Nguyen (2009), Public Domain
The first memory I have of the Vatican Museums is the opulence. I remember entering a sunny courtyard (the Pine Cone Courtyard) and seeing the Sfera con Sfera (Sphere within a Sphere) by sculptor Arnold Pomodoro. It was one of the newer entries to the museum’s collections but gave us an idea what the museum held in store for us - a trip around a broken world contained within the folds of the Church, also a fractured system.
I was then guided to the Gallery of Tapestries, the grandeur of which takes some getting used to. The tapestries are most famous for being designed by Raphael, one of the most notable painters of the Renaissance & feature scenes from the life of Christ and Pope Urban VIII on opposite sides of the hall.
A few more sale (galleries) in, full of paintings & sculptures later, I reached the galleries in the Apostolic Palace (which contains the official residence of the Pope). The galleries are vast and have some of the most famous frescos known to man. The Raphael rooms & the Sistine Chapel mark the hallmarks of the High Renaissance of Rome- the Disputation of Rome by Raphael depicts the Church spanning heaven and earth, a metaphor of the power they wielded.
The Sistine Chapel
The Sistine Chapel, the innermost chapel of the Palace is famous for hosting works by Michaelangelo and Botticelli & Pietro Perugino and others but is also widely known as the venue for the election of successive Popes. Trivia aside, when you walk into the room full of people craning their necks up at the ceiling, you can find yourself standing beneath The Creation of Adam, one of the most reproduced religious paintings ever.
Michelangelo - Creation of Adam
The altar wall contains The Last Judgment, an oft contested fresco depicting myriad figures awaiting the final Day of Judgement at the hands of a resurrected Christ surrounded by his saints in heaven. The fresco is hypnotic and stays with you as you walk out through St. Peter’s Basilica into the late afternoon sun in the clearing of St. Peter’s Square.
Michelangelo- The Last Judgement