After a long day yesterday, we left at 9:00 to Pontifica Urbaniana University for the last time. Everyone was more or less awake, and we found our room and started right into class. We discussed Christianity, specifically, the Protestant Reformation. With Mr. Hesting in International Relations we discussed Multi-National Corporations (MNCs). We discussed if it really was a good thing to have corporations that make more money than countries, and have more power too.
We have seen it already in Rome, with American businesses everywhere, and in the World Cup, where rules (like no alcohol to be sold in stadiums) were broken so companies could enjoy more profit (*cough* Budweiser *cough*). For the second day in a row, this sparked a lively discussion, and I think Mr. Hesting thought we all did an okay job in class. Once we were done, however, we were completely free for the rest of the day, until 6:45PM.
Everyone was happy for some free time, so after a quick panino I ran back to the hotel to get a few assignments done. Then, at two, the whole group went out to go shopping. Mr. Hesting led a group of us to the so-called “Geek Shop” where there were medieval swords and wands on display and for sale. After a quick stop in, we all traveled back to the hotel. Once back at the hotel, we still had around four hours to burn, so I submitted some blog posts (the internet is slow again, by the way) and talked with friends. When 6:45 finally came around, we were all in the lobby awaiting our tour of the day: The Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel at night.
For this special occasion, we had a new tour guide, Rich. When he came, we walked through and around the Vatican to get to the entrance to the museum. The Vatican Museums have 53 different galleries, not including the Sistine Chapel, and are 508 years old. The museum not only has a very large collection of Renaissance artwork, but also Greco-Roman marble statues, Pagan bronze statues, relics from civilizations past, contemporary artists like Dalí, and major artists like da Vinci, Raphael, Bernini, and Michelangelo.
As the tour began, we walked through a courtyard with a massive pinecone made of bronze. It was a pagan idol that was dug up many years ago and put on display. It was right next to the courtyard that dinner for the night was held. After a brief meal we all left for the museums, anticipation flowing through our bodies. When we first get in, we pass a hall at least 100 yards long filled with excellent Roman and Greek statues. These are statues that would be centerpieces in museums in America and other parts of the world, and they’re in essentially a storage hall in these museums. Let that show just how massive this collection of art is in the Vatican Museums.
Past the storage hall, we entered a courtyard with pristine Greek and Roman statues. Most of them were life size, some bigger, but all of them were amazingly detailed and precise. The famous Laocoön and His Sons was on display here. As we wandered through in a state of awe, we entered into more rooms filled with statues. Many of these rooms had painted ceilings with gold leaf and mosaic or marble floors. One room was even made to look like the Pantheon, and had a large bronze statue of Hercules as the main piece. In the next rooms, the statues were switched with tapestries, many of them larger than to be of use anywhere but a palace.
Soon, we came upon the Hall of Maps. In it were detailed, artful maps that were almost larger than would be useful. The ceiling was overwhelming. It was golden, with coats of arms, paintings, angels, and anything you could imagine on the ceiling. It was one of those rooms where you catch yourself staring with your mouth wide open. The only part I regret about the room is that because it was night, the pictures did not come out as not as clear as they would be in the day.
Past the Hall of Maps we saw more and more of the type of art that you think of when you think about the Church: Massive paintings depicting biblical events or important events of the church. Just like the last hall, these rooms had ornate ceilings that were nearly as nice as the paintings themselves. After a few of these rooms we walked into Raphael’s “School of Athens.” This fresco was beautiful, the details and little references, like putting da Vinci and Michelangelo’s faces on two of the people, were outstanding. And again, the ceiling was magnificent. After that, we only passed through a few more rooms until we reached the crown jewel of the museums, the Sistine Chapel.
Having been in existence since 1368, the Sistine Chapel (or “Sixteenth Street Chapel,” as it was called by a friend back home) was restored under Pope Sixtus IV in the 1480s. Today, it is used for occasional mass, as an art museum, and for the Papal conclave. The Papal conclave is the voting process for the new Pope. Whenever a Pope dies or resigns, this process begins. All the cardinals in the world, as long as they are under 80 years old, are locked in the Sistine Chapel and vote, twice in the morning and twice at night, for a new pope. There is to be no politics here, only prayer to God, that he will guide them to vote for the right person. The process is repeated until a two-thirds majority is reached, and if the potential Pope agrees. If there is no Pope elected, they stay locked in until there is. Hopefully, however, we do not witness another one of these for a while.
The chapel features many frescoes from many different artists, all done in the Renaissance period. On one wall, there is the Life of Moses portrayed in frescoes; on the opposite wall, the Life of Christ mirrors that of Moses. These events draw parallels to the two figures. As Moses is shown coming down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, Jesus, on the opposite wall, is shown giving the “new commandments”, the Beatitudes, on his Sermon on the Mount. As the Trials of Moses are shown on one side, the Temptation of Christ is shown on the other.
On the ceiling are the famous frescoes by Michelangelo. In center is the famous Creation of Adam, where Adam is given life by a touch from God. This is one of his most famous pieces, rivaled by the piece right behind the alter, The Last Judgment, which shows the saved on the left, and the damned on the right. In the corner, we were informed by Rich, was a portrayal of a Cardinal who did not like Michelangelo. So, he is depicted as the Judge of Hell in the bottom right corner. Again, the only regret I had was that I was not allowed to take any photos.
After the Sistine Chapel, we all were drained. We had just gone through one of the most amazing museums in the world, and there was still so much we could have seen. We could have spent days in single rooms, and months in the Sistine Chapel alone. However, it was getting late, and we headed back. On the way back, we got gelato, and talked about the beauty that was what we just saw. The consensus was overwhelmingly positive: The Vatican Museums were some of the greatest things we had ever seen.