Despite the rain we had an excellent tour at the Vatican today. Adrian, Nora, Anthony, Mary and myself got up early this morning to go. The weather forecast in Rome this weekend is snow again and in order to encourage us to stay in Rome rather than travel, St. John's volunteered to pay for us to go tour the Vatican. Only about thirteen students showed up out of the two-hundred offered. We were thrilled! Instead of paying between thirty and fifty dollars a person we got to tour the whole Vatican for free!
We had an excellent tour guide. She spoke great English and brought us through the various Vatican museums, Sistine Chapel and eventually we toured St. Peter's Basilica on our own.
Our tour began at the famous Vatican spiral staircase and proceeded on to a wooden miniature size replica of all of Vatican City- neither I had seen on my tour two years ago.
From there our tour guide led us to a beautiful view of St. Peter's Basilica
She then began explaining a lot of interesting information about the Vatican and Papacy. I wish I could remember all the history she told us about, but I did my best to take some notes of things I found rather interesting. Italy did not become a unified nation until around the year 1870, long after the United States became a unified nation. The Vatican in particular was an extremely corrupt political organization. In fact, most of the artwork in the Vatican, including that of Michelangelo, was made for pure propaganda and to prove the Vatican was an extremely powerful entity and political institution. Artwork was a way of showing power and that is the reason the Sistine Chapel exists. People outside of Rome to this day are extremely skeptical of the Vatican because of what has happened over the centuries regarding the political nature of the Vatican. Prior to Italy becoming unified, the Pope's were rather scandalous. In fact, many Pope's had children that they would then pretend were their "nephews" in order to gain more power as a political dynasty. The "nephews" would then become bishops and cardinals and so on. The Pope's were heavily involved in politics and lived what many would consider now-a-days a "sinful" life. Hence the reason many Italians to this day are skeptical of the Vatican.
From there our tour guide planned on bringing us into one of the Vatican's famous courtyards, but it was pouring rain :( I was still able to snag some pictures though!
From the courtyard we ventured into the various Vatican museums filled with famous sculptures, art, tapestries and paintings. The museums consist of everything from Greek and Roman sculptures, pottery, Egyptian artwork and famous paintings and frescoes. Here is just a glimpse at SOME of what we saw.
I particularly found the Tapestry Museum one of the most interesting. It is several tapestry's commissioned by Pope Clement VIII by the famous and genius artist Rapheal. Raphael's pupils actually completed the tapestry's, not Raphael himself. The ones that stuck out to me most were the ones depicting the killing of all the first born sons as ordered by King Herod. Also known as the "Massacre of the Innocent". These tapestries show little baby boys being murdered and are not only violent, but detailed.
I found the tapestries disturbing, but also a great representation of the pure talent and genius Raphael was. We continued on to the Raphael room located in part of one of the Pope's apartments. Possibly the highlight of my day would be seeing Raphael's famous painting on the wall in the apartment of Aristotle and Plato called "The School of Athens". The philosophers Aristotle and Plato had very different views on just about everything, but this painting depicts the men walking side by side right at its center. Each person within the painting has a specific purpose. Take note, only three people in the whole entire painting are looking towards us (the viewer of the painting). Those people are first of all Raphael himself, he is all the way to the right of the photo, wearing red with black hair. Next to him is his best friend wearing white. All the way to the left of the photo is a woman looking out. She is one of the only women in the entire painting and by far the only woman of that nature. Our tour guide explained that she has not been clearly identified, because she is a woman and there has been debates of that over the years. It is thought to be a woman whom was known to be a genius in mathematics and science for her time. This was unheard of, a woman of this caliber during a time of absolute oppression of woman. Therefore, it is difficult to determine for a fact who she is. It is said almost all the famous philosophers can be found within this painting. Various symbolism is used throughout. I could have looked at this beautiful masterpiece for hours. My pictures of this painting in particular do not do justice. To get a better view I would suggest looking the painting up on google! :)
After Raphael's room we made it to the Sistine Chapel! Ahhhh! Michelangelo's masterpiece up close and personal! We are not supposed to take pictures within the Sistine Chapel, but I was able to sneak a few. If you look close you can almost see the most famous painting in the Sistine Chapel- God giving life to Adam.
Our tour guide today explained the reason the Sistine Chapel is so significant. It was commissioned by Pope Julius II. Michelangelo was picked at the time because he was a artistic genius and no other person of his nature had ever existed before. The Sistine Chapel ended up being a revolution for artists everywhere. No paintings (the technical term is actually Frescoes) had ever been done like this before. The bodies of the people were so realistic and so muscular detailed it was mind-boggling. It has been assumed Michelangelo actually worked on cadavers in order to learn about how the human muscles and anatomy should be depicted. This was very secret though because it was extremely socially unacceptable during this time period.
There was SO much history thrown at us about the Sistine Chapel and it was SO interesting. I wish I could remember it all to write about. It is so amazing that Michelangelo was able to paint such intricate and revolutionary Fresco's sometimes upside down or hanging from the ceiling. It took him four years to complete the Sistine Chapel and unlike his greatest competitor Raphael, he did all the work himself without any assistance. Of course the Sistine was not created without scandal. Michelangelo ran into several issues while creating the masterpiece. Apparently the Church did not approve of the naked figures Michelangelo depicted. He covered the bodies after they were created with painted on fabric, much to his disdain. In order to show how upset he was in the center of his creation he painted a figure holding skin (like a skin outline to a body). This was a self portrait of him and signified he was being stripped of himself.
After the Sistine Chapel our tour was basically concluded. The rain started to come down hard and instead of just concluding our tour there; the five of us decided to keep going.
We went into St. Peter's Basilica on our own. Watching Adrian's reaction when we first walked inside the Basilica was priceless. He gasped so loud and said, "Oh my god. This is so beautiful." The inside of St. Peter's Basilica is just that, beautiful. At the center is the remains of St. Peter. I did not note earlier, but St. Peter was killed inside of St. Peter's square. The exact location is uncertain. Even so, what is left of his remains are in the center of the Vatican. I took a picture of myself in front of the alter. I know its cheesy, but I couldn't resist. I also took another in front of the alter in the back of St. Peter's. Please excuse my super cheesiness!
Here are more photos of St. Peter's Basilica overall. One again I will reiterate the fact my pictures do not do justice. The inside of St. Peter's Basilica is very dark and even with flash it is difficult to show how incredible it actually is.
After walking around St. Peter's Basilica we found a staircase towards the back and decided to follow the people that were walking down. We had no idea what was underneath the Basilica. Here we found a tomb to several deceased Pope's!!!!! We were not allowed to take pictures...but once again I had to sneak one. I just spent the last three weeks doing my final Theology presentation on Pope Benedict XV and was so amazed when we came across him tomb!!!!!! His actual remains were inside!
Several of the other Pope's dated back to the 1400's! Of course, St. Peter's tomb was also down there...the first Pope ever! I could not believe we had come across this. There were no signs or indications this underground tomb even existed. Our tour officially came to an end after about five hours!! It was so worth traveling in the pouring rain. Once again a special thank you to St. John's for encouraging us to do this and paying for us to get in. An even MORE special thank you to my parents who pay St. John's to take me to things like this!!! I still cannot even comprehend the history I have witnessed while staying in Rome. Not only did I tour the Vatican for the second time in my life, I got to see the Sistine Chapel again, learn even more history, see several Pope's Tombs and SEE THE CURRENT POPE ! What an adventure...and the semester is not even half way over!!!
On the way back everyone got a Taxi back to campus besides Adrian and I. Despite the rain we wanted to do a little shopping by the Vatican to pick up some souvenirs. I couldn't help but feel saddened this could be my last time seeing Vatican City for the rest of my life.
On our way back we ventured into a clothing store. The clothes were made in Sicily yet Adrian and I found it so ironic that the majority of clothes said either LA or NY on them. I took a quick picture to show. The influence the United States has is so interesting.
The rain has slowly turned into snow throughout the day. Adrian and Nora just went out an hour ago to get dinner and found everything has already closed. St. John's encouraged us to stock up on food, because unlike in the United States where there is at least some place open during a snow storm, there is not here. Everything closes.
Our advisor Domenico informed us this morning that before the snow was even coming today the mayor of Rome canceled school. The High School hasn't been in session for the last week!!! All because of ONE inch of snow!!!! Tomorrow we have plans to go to Assisi... Nora, Adrian, Sarah and her three friends are all planning on going. Our train leaves at 7:45am...cross your fingers the snow doesn't keep us from going!!
I finished my online project today before I wrote this Blog; in fact, Domenico my advisor helped me with it. I had to interview a native Italian and ask what they thought the benefits of being apart of the European Union were (my class is all about the European Union-Europes Central Government) He was extremely helpful. I have been learning so much about the European Union through this class and through talking to people about it here.
Well, it is almost 8pm and I still need to eat dinner and write a paper for Theology. Thank you for reading my VERY long post about the Vatican...if you made it to this sentence you are the best :) I hope to have a great Blog post tomorrow night about my adventure in Assisi...PLEASE NO MORE SNOW!!!! hahah
As always thank you for reading. Have a great weekend in the States! I send my love!
XOXO Shann
I read somewhere that 3/4 of the world's artistic masterpieces are in Italy. It truly is overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteGreat piece.
Signora M