Bill's Aviation Log

A nice shot of St. Peter's Basilica's Dome.

The red porphyry all came from the Gabal Abu Dukhan quarry in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The road from the quarry westward to Qena (Roman Maximianopolis) on the Nile, which Ptolemy put on his second-century map, was first described by Strabo, and it is to this day known as the Via Porphyrites, the Porphyry Road, its track marked by the hydreumata, or watering wells that made it viable in this utterly dry landscape. It was used for all the red porphyry columns in Rome, the togas on busts of emperors, the panels in the revetment of the Pantheon,[22] the Column of Constantine in Istanbul[23] as well as the altars and vases and fountain basins reused in the Renaissance and dispersed as far as Kyiv.

After the fifth century the quarry was lost to sight for many centuries. Byzantium scholar Alexander Vasiliev suggested this was the consequence of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and the subsequent troubles in Egypt.[27] The scientific members of the French Expedition under Napoleon sought it in vain, and it was only when the Eastern Desert was reopened for study under Muhammad Ali that the site was rediscovered by the English Egyptologists James Burton and John Gardner Wilkinson in 1823.

Choosing porphyry as a material was a bold and specific statement for late Imperial Rome. As if it were not enough that porphyry was explicitly for imperial use, the stone's rarity set the emperors apart from their subjects as their superiors. The comparative vividness of porphyry to other stones underscored that these figures were not regular citizens, but many levels above, even gods, and worthy of the respect they expected. Porphyry made the emperors unapproachable in terms of power and nature, belonging to another world, the world of the mighty gods, present for a short time on earth.[

As the name suggests, the Gallery of the Candelabra is so called due to the enormous marble candlesticks that you can find in each section as you walk down the hallway.

The gallery was completely renovated during the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII Pecci (1878 – 1903) and that is what you see today. It was meant to be built so that each piece is like a furnishing for a house.

It's also called the Gallery of Statues.

The ceilings were over the top.

Lynnette and I have seen our share of Flemish tapestries all over Europe but I must say these pieces were the best quality we have ever seen. The color and detail were exceptional.

What are tapestries? They are rugs whose original purpose was simply to keep a room warmer before the invention of centralized heating. The gallery is always air-conditioned since the tapestries emanate a lot of heat.

As you walk down the gallery you will see tapestries on the right-hand side dedicated to stories of the life of the Barberini Pope Urban VIII (17th century). On the left-hand side, are stories from the Bible whose original drawings were executed by the school of Raphael, then woven in Flanders.

This tapestry illustrates The Ides of March -- the assassination of Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BC. Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Senate. As many as 60 conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius, were involved. According to Plutarch, a seer had warned that harm would come to Caesar on the Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, "Well, the Ides of March are come", implying that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied "Aye, they are come, but they are not gone." This meeting is famously dramatised in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned by the soothsayer to "beware the Ides of March."

Next we arrived at the Gallery of the Maps. This 394 foot-long corridor -- longer than a football field! -- is beautifully decorated with historical maps.

Commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII, this corridor was built and set up between 1580 and 1585, and the frescoes were painted by Italian and Flemish artists. The direction, however, belonged to Ignazio Danti, an expert mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer.

It took forty maps to cover the walls of the entire gallery

Another map of Rome with the Tiber River running through it.

The painting Sobieski at Vienna by Jan Matejko.

The Battle of Vienna took place at Kahlenberg Mountain near Vienna on 12 September 1683 after the city had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months. The battle was fought by the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburg monarchy) and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, both under the command of King John III Sobieski, against the Ottomans and their vassal and tributary states. The battle marked the first time the Commonwealth and the Holy Roman Empire had cooperated militarily against the Ottomans. The defeat was a turning point for Ottoman [Muslim] expansion into Europe, after which they would gain no further ground.

The artist, Jan Alojzy Matejko, also known as Jan Mateyko; (1838 – 1893) was a Polish painter known for paintings of notable historical Polish political and military events. His works include large oil on canvas paintings like Rejtan (1866), Union of Lublin (1869) or Battle of Grunwald (1878), numerous portraits, a gallery of Polish kings, and murals in St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków. He is referred to as the most famous Polish painter or even the "national painter" of Poland.

In another room is "The Liberation of St Peter", where the Prince of the Apostles is saved from prison by an angel while the guards lie sleeping. Here Raphael contrasted the light of the angel with the dawn of the moon, torches and their reflections on the armor, and with the natural light from the window below.

This is Raphael's famous and best known work: The School of Athens.

Commentators have suggested that nearly every great ancient Greek philosopher can be found in the painting, but determining which are depicted is speculative, since Raphael made no designations outside possible likenesses, and no contemporary documents explain the painting. Compounding the problem, Raphael had to invent a system of iconography to allude to various figures for whom there were no traditional visual types. For example, while the Socrates figure -- top center left in green robe, facing left -- is immediately recognizable from Classical busts, one of the figures alleged to be Epicurus is far removed from his standard depiction.

Plato (with the face of Leonardo Da Vinci) is in the center, finger pointing upwards and flanked by Aristotle.

Famous philosophers (the easily identifiable Pythagoras, Euclid, Heraclius, and Averroes) move amongst magnificent architecture. Today's St. Peter's was under construction as Raphael was working. In the School of Athens, he gives us a sneak preview of the unfinished church.

Italian architect and painter Bramante is Euclid, at lower right in the red robe, bending over a chalkboard.

Raphael puts himself in the painting on the far right side, staring directly at us.

According to legend, while Raphael was painting this room, Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel. One day, he got a peek of what Michelangelo was doing and was so impressed that he came back upstairs and broke a piece of plaster off the wall and painted the face of Michelangelo as a tribute to how good he was. Michelangelo is Heraclitus, at lower left center, hiw elbow resting on a block.

Even Alexander the Great is in the painting, at top left wearing plumed helmet, facing right, looking at Socrates. Aristotle was Alexander's tutor from the ages 13 to 16, by the way.

There are four large frescoes in this chamber, each representing one of the four pillars of human knowledge: the School of Athens, Justice, Philosophy, and Poetry.

The collection was devastated by the removal of many items by Napoleonic forces, leading the most prestigious works to be dispersed in Parisian and other foreign museums.

The Sistine Chapel is the Pope's personal chapel and also the place where, upon the death of the ruling pope, a new pope is elected.

It was named after Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere who had it restored between 1477 and 1480. The decorations made across the 15th century bear the names of important artists such as Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Pietro Perugino. In the early 16th century, when the pope was Julius II, the nephew of Sixtus IV, the full decoration of the ceiling was commissioned to the great Michelangelo Buonarroti, then only 33 years old. It took him four years to paint the ceiling.

"The ceiling shows the history of the world before the birth of Jesus. We see God creating the world, creating man and woman, destroying the earth by flood, and so on. God himself, in his purple robe, actually appears inthe first five scenes. Along the sides (where the ceiling starts to curve), we see the Old Testament prophets and pagan Greek propheteses who foretold the coming of Christ.

In the central panel of the Creation of Adam, God and man take center state in this Renaissance version of creation. Adam, newly formed in the image of God, lounges dreamily in perfect naked innocence. God, with his entourage, swoops in with a swirl of activity (which -- with a little imagination -- looks like a cross-section of a human brain ... quite a strong humanist statement). Their reaching hands are the center of this work. Adam's is limp and passive; God's is strong and forceful, his finger twitching upward with energy. Here is the very momet of creation, as God passes the spark of life to man, the crowning work of his creation." .... Rick Steves

Almost 30 years later, the same Michelangelo also painted the wall behind the altar with the world-famous Last Judgment (at lower center).

Over the centuries after the ceiling's painting, it became so aged by candle smoke and layers of varnish as to significantly mute the original colours. Some restorations took place in the early and mid-20th century. After preliminary tests taking place in 1979, the ceiling was restored between 1980 and 1992. The first stage of restoration, the work upon Michelangelo's lunettes, was performed between June 1980 and October 1984. The work then proceeded to the ceiling, completed on 31 December 1989, and from there to The Last Judgment. The restoration was unveiled by Pope John Paul II on 8 April 1994.

The restoration has removed the filter of grime to reveal colours closer to the paintings at the time of their completion. The ceiling now appears to depict daytime scenes and a springlike atmosphere with bright saturated colours.

Our guide pointed out one area that was deliberately left unrestored. It was very dark, almost black.

May 18, 2024 - Classic Italy Vatican Museum & Sistene Chapel
Tauck tours include special things which separate them from your average tour company. Things like going on a private, after-hours tour of the Vatican Museum and the Sistene Chapel, for example. That's what was on the agenda for tonight. The after-hours tour meant we got to avoid the long ticket lines and shoulder-to-shoulder crowds inside the museum. In 2023, the Vatican Museums were visited by 6.8 million people. They ranked second both in the list of most-visited museums and most-visited art museums in the world. The Louvre is ranked number one in both. The tour bus picked us up at the hotel and dropped us off alongside the massive Vatican City wall.

People still exiting the Vatican Museum.

A nice shot of St. Peter's Basilica's Dome.

Our group went into the now-empty Vatican Museum lobby, quickly went through security, and then we were in the museum. There were one or two other tour groups but all together not a lot of people, less than 100. The Vatican Museums are the public museums of Vatican City, enclave of Rome. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of the most well-known Roman sculptures and most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world. The museums contain roughly 70,000 works, of which 20,000 are on display, and currently employs 640 people who work in 40 different administrative, scholarly, and restoration departments. Pope Julius II founded the museums in the early 16th century. Our Tauck group split into two sub-groups. I was happy that our sub-group had the same guide we had for the St. Peter's Basilica, who was outstanding. We start off in the Pio Clementino Museum with some Greek and Roman statues. This one looks Greek.

This one definately Roman.

This monumental red porphyry sarcophagus is believed to have held the remains of Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, who died around 335 A.D. and was buried in the Imperial mausoleum at Tor Pignattara, between the via Prenestina and the via Labicana outside Rome. In 1777 it was brought into the Vatican and restored by Gaspare Sibilla and Giovanni Pierantoni and mounted on four lions carved by Francesco Antonio Franzoni. The coffin is carved with military scenes with Roman soldiers on horseback and barbarian prisoners. On the lid of the sarcophagus figures of cupids and victories hold garlands, while on the very top there are two lions either side of the ridge - one sleeping, the other lying down. This very military decoration, not really suitable for a female burial, has led scholars to suppose that the sarcophagus was originally made for a male member of the Imperial family, such as Helena's husband, Constantius Chlorus or, more probably, Constantine himself.

The red porphyry all came from the Gabal Abu Dukhan quarry in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The road from the quarry westward to Qena (Roman Maximianopolis) on the Nile, which Ptolemy put on his second-century map, was first described by Strabo, and it is to this day known as the Via Porphyrites, the Porphyry Road, its track marked by the hydreumata, or watering wells that made it viable in this utterly dry landscape. It was used for all the red porphyry columns in Rome, the togas on busts of emperors, the panels in the revetment of the Pantheon,[22] the Column of Constantine in Istanbul[23] as well as the altars and vases and fountain basins reused in the Renaissance and dispersed as far as Kyiv. After the fifth century the quarry was lost to sight for many centuries. Byzantium scholar Alexander Vasiliev suggested this was the consequence of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and the subsequent troubles in Egypt.[27] The scientific members of the French Expedition under Napoleon sought it in vain, and it was only when the Eastern Desert was reopened for study under Muhammad Ali that the site was rediscovered by the English Egyptologists James Burton and John Gardner Wilkinson in 1823. Choosing porphyry as a material was a bold and specific statement for late Imperial Rome. As if it were not enough that porphyry was explicitly for imperial use, the stone's rarity set the emperors apart from their subjects as their superiors. The comparative vividness of porphyry to other stones underscored that these figures were not regular citizens, but many levels above, even gods, and worthy of the respect they expected. Porphyry made the emperors unapproachable in terms of power and nature, belonging to another world, the world of the mighty gods, present for a short time on earth.[

Porphyry is any of various granites or igneous rocks with coarse-grained crystals such as feldspar or quartz dispersed in a fine-grained silicate-rich, generally aphanitic matrix or groundmass. Who knew? Love the Lion pedastals!

Looking at the entrance to the Egypt and Mesopotamia section. Pope Gregory XVI founded the museum dedicated to Egypt in 1839. The idea was to learn about Ancient Egyptian civilization to understand the holy scriptures more completely. The Egyptian museum has nine rooms but we did not go in.



As the name suggests, the Gallery of the Candelabra is so called due to the enormous marble candlesticks that you can find in each section as you walk down the hallway. The gallery was completely renovated during the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII Pecci (1878 – 1903) and that is what you see today. It was meant to be built so that each piece is like a furnishing for a house. It's also called the Gallery of Statues.



A Greek statue?

Another Roman statue.

The ceilings were over the top.

Even the floors were works of art.



We entered the hallway known as the Gallery of the Tapestries. decorated with Flemish tapestries crafted in Brussels by the workshop of Pieter van Aelst. They date back to the 16th century, more precisely to the time of Clement VII. They were first exhibited in the Sistine Chapel in 1531 and set up for display in this Gallery in 1838.

Lynnette and I have seen our share of Flemish tapestries all over Europe but I must say these pieces were the best quality we have ever seen. The color and detail were exceptional. What are tapestries? They are rugs whose original purpose was simply to keep a room warmer before the invention of centralized heating. The gallery is always air-conditioned since the tapestries emanate a lot of heat. As you walk down the gallery you will see tapestries on the right-hand side dedicated to stories of the life of the Barberini Pope Urban VIII (17th century). On the left-hand side, are stories from the Bible whose original drawings were executed by the school of Raphael, then woven in Flanders.

This tapestry illustrates The Massacre of the Innocents -- a story recounted in the Nativity narrative of the Gospel of Matthew in which Herod the Great, king of Judea, orders the execution of all male children who are two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem.

Jesus rises from the dead, as he said he would, on the Sunday morning – the third day after his crucifixion and burial on the preceding Friday. This ‘Day of Resurrection’ – Sunday 9th April 30AD – is now celebrated as ‘Easter Sunday’. This tapestry was originally hung in the Sistine Chapel until it was moved to this gallery in the 1830s. Jesus stands on the stone that had closed up his burial and holds up his right hand with the three-finger sign of the holy trinity. The Roman soldiers who had been guarding the tomb are all moved back in fear as they see Jesus literally coming back from the dead. His wounds are still fresh from where he was nailed to the cross and he has a look of complete calm and triumph with a light halo glow behind his head. The Flemish designers decided to add a little something extra in this tapestry, however. With the tapestry on your left, find Jesus’ eyes and slowly start to walk past the tapestry. His eyes will follow you from one side to the other. The message was simple: no matter where you are, Jesus is always watching you!



This tapestry illustrates The Ides of March -- the assassination of Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BC. Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Senate. As many as 60 conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius, were involved. According to Plutarch, a seer had warned that harm would come to Caesar on the Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, "Well, the Ides of March are come", implying that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied "Aye, they are come, but they are not gone." This meeting is famously dramatised in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned by the soothsayer to "beware the Ides of March."



Next we arrived at the Gallery of the Maps. This 394 foot-long corridor -- longer than a football field! -- is beautifully decorated with historical maps. Commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII, this corridor was built and set up between 1580 and 1585, and the frescoes were painted by Italian and Flemish artists. The direction, however, belonged to Ignazio Danti, an expert mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer. It took forty maps to cover the walls of the entire gallery

The ceiling of the Gallery of the Maps is equally amazing. Imagine having to paint a ceiling that is 393 feet long. You not only have to paint it, but also decorate the rest of it with stucco and gold leaf. That is exactly what Ignazio Danti set out to do in 1580 together with artists Cesare Nebbia and Girolamo Muziano. In three short years, they were able to finish not only the ceiling but even the side frescos. The ceiling is a mixture of saints, martyrs, apostles, and other important figures in Christianity. When you look up, you realize that the order of the paintings was meant to be looked at coming from the other direction, since the frescoes will be upside down to you. What is even more remarkable is that the figures in the ceiling frescos can be linked directly to the geographical positioning of the maps on either side.

This map shows Naples, the Gulf of Naples, Sorrento, Amalfi Coast, Salerno and Capri island, among other things.

A map of Rome in the late 16th-century.

Another map of Rome with the Tiber River running through it.

A map of Italy in its entirety. Our tour guide is at lower left. She was very interesting. It's too bad my memory is so bad and I remember little of what she said.

The painting Sobieski at Vienna by Jan Matejko. The Battle of Vienna took place at Kahlenberg Mountain near Vienna on 12 September 1683 after the city had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months. The battle was fought by the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburg monarchy) and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, both under the command of King John III Sobieski, against the Ottomans and their vassal and tributary states. The battle marked the first time the Commonwealth and the Holy Roman Empire had cooperated militarily against the Ottomans. The defeat was a turning point for Ottoman [Muslim] expansion into Europe, after which they would gain no further ground. The artist, Jan Alojzy Matejko, also known as Jan Mateyko; (1838 – 1893) was a Polish painter known for paintings of notable historical Polish political and military events. His works include large oil on canvas paintings like Rejtan (1866), Union of Lublin (1869) or Battle of Grunwald (1878), numerous portraits, a gallery of Polish kings, and murals in St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków. He is referred to as the most famous Polish painter or even the "national painter" of Poland.

Looking at a fresco in the Room of the Immaculate Conception. Following the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by Pius IX, which took place on 8 December 1854, the pontiff decide to celebrate the event with a cycle of frescoes. The large room adjacent to the Raphael's Rooms was chosen, and the task was assigned to Francis Podesti (1800-1895), a painter originally from Ancona but rooted in the Roman artistic and academic panorama. The artist, along with his team of workers, worked on the commission from 1856 to 1865, planning it and following its execution in all its aspects: the wooden doors and window frames and the inlaid marble work, as well as the installation of the Roman mosaic from Ostia Antica, purchased specifically for this space. The pictorial decoration proceeds from the ceiling, with allegorical scenes alluding to the virtues of the Virgin; it continues along the northern wall with the homage of the continents to the Church enthroned; it continues on the west wall, devoted to the Discussion of dogma in St. Peter’s Basilica, and concludes on the east wall, with the Coronation of the Image of Mary, an event following the Proclamation, which took place in St. Peter’s. Podesti, who was present, included a self-portrait here.

An elaborate ceiling.

We came to the famous four Raphael Rooms, where each wall features a magnificent fresco. That is not to mention the incredible ceilings. In 1508 a promising young artist named Raffaello Sanzio from Urbino was commissioned to fresco the walls of Pope Julius II's new apartment. The result would go down in history. Painted by Raphael and pupils between 1508 and 1524, they are located on the second floor of the Papal Palace. Together with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, Raphael forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. This fresco is "The Fire in the Borgo", produced in the workshop of the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael between the years 1514 and 1517. It represents Pope Leo IV reciting a blessing from a balcony in front of the Old St. Peter’s Basilica in 847 in order to put out a fire that was raging inside the church.

In another room is "The Liberation of St Peter", where the Prince of the Apostles is saved from prison by an angel while the guards lie sleeping. Here Raphael contrasted the light of the angel with the dawn of the moon, torches and their reflections on the armor, and with the natural light from the window below.

A Pope, no doubt.

This is Raphael's famous and best known work: The School of Athens. Commentators have suggested that nearly every great ancient Greek philosopher can be found in the painting, but determining which are depicted is speculative, since Raphael made no designations outside possible likenesses, and no contemporary documents explain the painting. Compounding the problem, Raphael had to invent a system of iconography to allude to various figures for whom there were no traditional visual types. For example, while the Socrates figure -- top center left in green robe, facing left -- is immediately recognizable from Classical busts, one of the figures alleged to be Epicurus is far removed from his standard depiction. Plato (with the face of Leonardo Da Vinci) is in the center, finger pointing upwards and flanked by Aristotle. Famous philosophers (the easily identifiable Pythagoras, Euclid, Heraclius, and Averroes) move amongst magnificent architecture. Today's St. Peter's was under construction as Raphael was working. In the School of Athens, he gives us a sneak preview of the unfinished church. Italian architect and painter Bramante is Euclid, at lower right in the red robe, bending over a chalkboard. Raphael puts himself in the painting on the far right side, staring directly at us. According to legend, while Raphael was painting this room, Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel. One day, he got a peek of what Michelangelo was doing and was so impressed that he came back upstairs and broke a piece of plaster off the wall and painted the face of Michelangelo as a tribute to how good he was. Michelangelo is Heraclitus, at lower left center, hiw elbow resting on a block. Even Alexander the Great is in the painting, at top left wearing plumed helmet, facing right, looking at Socrates. Aristotle was Alexander's tutor from the ages 13 to 16, by the way. There are four large frescoes in this chamber, each representing one of the four pillars of human knowledge: the School of Athens, Justice, Philosophy, and Poetry.

Looking outside a window up at the Sistene Chapel. The outside is non-descript with no hint as to the treasures inside.

The Profane Museum gathers and displays the precious artifacts of the Vatican such as medals, jewelry, cameos, and crystals. You can imagine how many fabulous gifts the Popes have received over the centuries. They are displayed here.

Treasures.

Rings of the Popes.

Don't remember why I took this picture, unfortunately.

The collection was devastated by the removal of many items by Napoleonic forces, leading the most prestigious works to be dispersed in Parisian and other foreign museums.

Some of the hammers used by the Popes over the years to smash open the bricked up "Holy Door" every 25 years.

I found this gift from the United States to the Vatican interesting. It's a Vatican flag that was carried to the moon's surface and back on Apollo 11 in 1969. Four moon fragments are part of the gift.



Then we came to the highlight of the trip: The Sistine Chapel and it's famous ceiling painted by Michelangelo. Many art scholars contend that the Sistine Chapel Ceiling is the single greatest work of art by any one human being. ... Rick Steves And we had the place to ourselves for 30 minues or so. Normally the place is packed, it's loud, and you get maybe ten minutes. My understanding was that no photography was allowed in the Sistine Chapel and our tour guide confirmed that. But later on, a guy in our Tauck group told me his tour guide said it was OK to take pictures and he did. So the following pictures are his.

The Sistine Chapel is the Pope's personal chapel and also the place where, upon the death of the ruling pope, a new pope is elected. It was named after Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere who had it restored between 1477 and 1480. The decorations made across the 15th century bear the names of important artists such as Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Pietro Perugino. In the early 16th century, when the pope was Julius II, the nephew of Sixtus IV, the full decoration of the ceiling was commissioned to the great Michelangelo Buonarroti, then only 33 years old. It took him four years to paint the ceiling. "The ceiling shows the history of the world before the birth of Jesus. We see God creating the world, creating man and woman, destroying the earth by flood, and so on. God himself, in his purple robe, actually appears inthe first five scenes. Along the sides (where the ceiling starts to curve), we see the Old Testament prophets and pagan Greek propheteses who foretold the coming of Christ. In the central panel of the Creation of Adam, God and man take center state in this Renaissance version of creation. Adam, newly formed in the image of God, lounges dreamily in perfect naked innocence. God, with his entourage, swoops in with a swirl of activity (which -- with a little imagination -- looks like a cross-section of a human brain ... quite a strong humanist statement). Their reaching hands are the center of this work. Adam's is limp and passive; God's is strong and forceful, his finger twitching upward with energy. Here is the very momet of creation, as God passes the spark of life to man, the crowning work of his creation." .... Rick Steves Almost 30 years later, the same Michelangelo also painted the wall behind the altar with the world-famous Last Judgment (at lower center).

Julius’ decision to repaint the ceiling probably had to do with structural damage caused during the excavations for the Borgia Tower and the new St. Peter’s Basilica. At the time, Michelangelo was working on the pope’s tomb and seemed to be quite content with this. As the story goes, Bramante, who was upset with Michelangelo for a previous slight, suggested to the pope that Michelangelo should paint the ceiling even though he was a sculptor and not a painter. Julius agreed and Michelangelo, pretty much against his will, signed the contract to paint the ceiling. [In those days, in Italy at least, if the Pope wanted you to do something, you did it.] The original design was to be the twelve apostles. However, after Michelangelo objected, Julius put the design in the master’s hands and the rest is history. Michelangelo had many problems/hardships going into this job. For example: He was a sculptor, not a painter. Having never really painted in this medium, his first attempt at fresco painting basically resulted in the most famous painting in the world. He had to build his own scaffolding before he could even reach the ceiling, which was 60 feet high. Since he was a perfectionist, he basically painted the entire thing by himself. There was no centralized heating, so he complained of stifling heat in the summer and numbing cold in the winter. He developed an eye disease during the painting, which only went away once he finished the ceiling years later. The ceiling is broken down into Central Panels, Sibyls and Prophets, Christ’s forefathers, and four corner stories. The heart of the ceiling is the nine central panels with arguably the most recognizable painting in the world—the Creation of Man panel. These central panels are: Separation of Light from Darkness Creation of the sun, moon, and planets Separation of Land from Sea Creation of Man Creation of Eve from the Body of Adam Banishment from the Garden of Eden The Sacrifice of Noah The Flood The Drunkenness of Noah

Over the centuries after the ceiling's painting, it became so aged by candle smoke and layers of varnish as to significantly mute the original colours. Some restorations took place in the early and mid-20th century. After preliminary tests taking place in 1979, the ceiling was restored between 1980 and 1992. The first stage of restoration, the work upon Michelangelo's lunettes, was performed between June 1980 and October 1984. The work then proceeded to the ceiling, completed on 31 December 1989, and from there to The Last Judgment. The restoration was unveiled by Pope John Paul II on 8 April 1994. The restoration has removed the filter of grime to reveal colours closer to the paintings at the time of their completion. The ceiling now appears to depict daytime scenes and a springlike atmosphere with bright saturated colours. Our guide pointed out one area that was deliberately left unrestored. It was very dark, almost black.





You can see at center where the ceiling is damaged.

A side painting.





Michelangelo’s Last Judgment huge fresco is the most famous painting in the Vatican Museums and is inside the Sistine Chapel. Painted in five years between 1536 and 1541, The Last Judgement covers the whole altar wall. (Image below from Wikipedia) It is a depiction of the Second Coming of Christ and the final and eternal judgment by God of all humanity. The dead rise and descend to their fates, as judged by Christ who is surrounded by prominent saints. Altogether there are over 300 figures, with nearly all the males and angels originally shown as nudes; many were later partly covered up by painted draperies, of which some remain after recent cleaning and restoration. The work took over four years to complete between 1536 and 1541 (preparation of the altar wall began in 1535). Michelangelo began working on it 25 years after having finished the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and was nearly 67 at its completion. He had originally accepted the commission from Pope Clement VII, but it was completed under Pope Paul III whose stronger reforming views probably affected the final treatment. Picture any 61-year-old man you know and imagine them painting a 42-foot high and 39-foot long wall for the next five years. On top of that, they would need to be able to produce a painting that would be described as one of the best ever created in the history of man. In the Last Judgement, all of the sinners will be sent down to Hell’s eternal fire and all of those who believe and repent will be allowed to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The world is ending at this point and Michelangelo portrays this perfectly, adding many elements of classic literature as well. In the upper lunettes, angels are carrying instruments used during the Passion of Christ (the cross, the whip, the column he was whipped on, and the crown of thorns). Below, an extremely muscular Jesus with no beard in a powerful position is presiding over the entire scene with a radiant halo bursting behind him. Recognizable figures include John the Baptist, the Virgin Mary, St. Peter holding the keys, and various other saints holding in their hands the instrument they were martyred with. Below, there is a group of angels blowing trumpets and holding two books that decide their fate—ascend to heaven or descend to hell. Those redeemed ascend from their graves while the condemned descend into the underworld. At the bottom, Michelangelo alludes to Greek mythology with the demon (Charon) on a boat who brings all the souls of the damned to the underworld. On the far right side, you will see the Devil himself and all the damned and lost souls behind him in Hell. When the painting was unveiled, many were shocked by the amount of nudity in the painting. Cardinal Biagio da Cesena said that this was better suited for a tavern than the holy chapel of the pope. It is said that Michelangelo then replaced the face of the devil with that of the cardinal, wrapping a snake around his body and biting him in the groin area. Below Jesus, you’ll find St. Bartholomew who was skinned alive. He holds a knife in his right hand and his own skin in his left. Many contemporaries suggested that Michelangelo did a self-portrait in the skin!

The tour finished with a nice appetizer buffet in The Pinecone Courtyard of the museum. The Pinecone Courtyard is a massive courtyard that connects the main galleries leading to the Sistine Chapel with the Pio Clementino and Braccio Nuovo Galleries. Reports have been written of jousting tournaments and bullfights taking place here under the Borgia Pope Alexander VI in the 15th century and, supposedly, Pope Leo X housed his pet elephant, Hanno, here in the 16th century. We were in the Vatican Museums less than three hours. It was great, but there is so much more that we didn't see. I'm guessing it would take a full day or more to see everything. Here are some of the things we didn't see: The Octagonal Courtyard which contains some of the most important sculptures including the beautiful Apollo Belvedere statue and the statue of Laocoön and His Sons -- the piece that started the Vatican Museums. Among the other statues that you can see in the courtyard are the 2nd-century River God (Arno), Perseus Triumphant made by Antonio Canova, and the Belvedere Hermes that was found in the gardens surrounding Castel Sant’Angelo (the Hadrian Mausoleum). The Pope's Carriage Pavilion The Pinacoteca art gallery that displays around 500 paintings over 18 rooms. Among the artists displayed are some of the most important Italian painters including Caravaggio, Giotto, Beato Angelico, Raphael, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Titian. The Gregorian Egyptian Museum The Gregorian Etruscan Museum -- the thousand-year-old Etruscan civilization from the Iron Age all the way through their definitive integration within Roman rule. The Borgia Apartment: This section of the Vatican Museums houses the apartments named after Pope Alexander VI born Rodrigo de Borja y Doms which is called “Borgia” in Italy. This is known as his apartment because it’s the area that was turned into his residence during his papacy from 1492 to 1503. The Spiral Staircase -- a double spiral ramp so that the visitors entering the museums and those leaving in the opposite direction would never meet. Apart from its great functionality, the spiral staircase is so beautiful that very few visitors forget to take great photos of it. (It's possible we did see this but I didn't take a picture.) That said, what a day we had today! St. Peter's Basilica, Museum of Rome, Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel. Wow!


	Previous	Home	Next

May 18, 2024 - Classic Italy Vatican Museum & Sistene Chapel

May 18, 2024 - Classic Italy
Vatican Museum & Sistene Chapel