Exploring the Vatican Museums
Museums plural, note. The complex houses a collection of museums to Renaissance painting, Etruscan arcana, Egyptology, Classical busts and statuary. The things you really mustn’t miss are the Sistine Chapel and the Raphael rooms. The key to enjoying galleries and museums is to plan, otherwise you’ll spend an hour in the first couple of rooms and not even scratch the surface of the treasures within.
The diversity is extraordinary. There is a terrific collection of Caravaggio’s, including the mighty Entombment. Paintings by Giotto, Raphael, Fra Angelico, Poussin, Titian and of course Leonardo’s portrait of St Jerome. There is the red marble Papal throne, rescued from the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano. There is the Niccoline Chapel and the Gallery of Maps. So where do we start?
Enter, and the first collection you hit is the Museo Pio-Clementino. The octagonal courtyard here houses some superb Classical statues, among them the Apollo Belvedere from Roman times and the Laocoon, dating from the first century AD and rescued from Nero’s Golden House in 1506. This sculpture is the origin of the whole collection of museums, being the first piece put on exhibition here more than 500 years ago (the anniversary was celebrated by the opening of the Vatican Hill necropolis excavations to the public in 2006). The Sala Rotonda has mosaics and statues and the Sala delle Muse houses statues of Apollo and the nine muses. An interesting oddity is the Sala degli Animali, with animal statuary.
Next up is the Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) which has mummy cases and ‘canopi’ (receptacles for the entrails of the dead). Climb to the first floor and we enter the Museo Gregorio Etrusco, with pieces from southern Etruria, including art and sculpture, and with fine examples of the handiwork for which Etruscan smiths were famous.
Down stairs again and we come to the Gallery of Candelabra, with enormous chandeliers from the old imperial Roman villas. There is the Gallery of Tapestries, including some fine 17th century cloths from the Barberini workshops. The huge Gallery of Maps is a delight, and a testimony to the confidence (or arrogance) of Pope Gregory XIII in the 16th century. Gregory it was who reorganised our calendar (the Gregorian Calendar you see) and he also commissioned artists to create great maps of the known world - the implication being that this world was very much under papal dominion. We see the Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto and maps of medieval Italy and France … fascinating stuff.
We move swiftly on to the Raffaello Stanze (Raphael Rooms), some of the work by the master himself, some by his pupils. The Stanz di Constantino has the epic ‘Battle of the Milvian Bridge’ by Romano and Penni. The Stanza di Eliodoro has important works including the ‘Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple’, the ‘Mass of Bolsena’, the ‘Deliverance of St Peter’ and ‘Leo I Repulsing Attila the Hun’. The Stanza della Segnatura (the Pope’s study) was commissioned by Julius I, with the magnificent ‘School of Athens’. Finally, the Stanza Incendio is a collaborative work by Perugino (Raphael’s teacher), Raphael himself and his pupils. See the ‘Fire in the Borgo’ here.
Onward to the Borgia Apartments, which houses modern art including works by Dali and Francis Bacon (a superb study of Innocent X after Velasquez). The real highlight is the ceiling frescoes, though, created by Pinturrichio in the Sala dei Santi. From here you take a stairway up to the Sistine Chapel, built by Sixtus IV between 1473 and 1481. Everybody knows Michelangelo’s ceiling painting of course and the Last Judgement, which graces the wall behind the altar. On busy days some 20,000 tourists troop through here, on quiet days a mere 15,000, so pick your time well to avoid the crowds. Late in the day is, of course, best. No photos or video in the Sistine Chapel by the way, and DO remember that you are in a place of worship. If Michelangelo was to paint the perfect backdrop, then the artists Sixtus commissioned to produce work to hang in the chapel were more than equal to it. A stellar array of talent included Perugino (’Jesus giving St Peter the Keys to Heaven’), Botticelli (’The Trials of Moses and ‘Cleansing of the Leper’) and Ghirlandaio (’Calling of St Peter and St Andrew’). The ceiling itself is a marvel, with frescoes moving from the ‘Creation of Light’ to the ‘Drunkenness of Noah’, a breathtaking gallop through the Old Testament. And the ‘Last Judgement’, grudgingly created by Michelangelo under pressure from the family of the now-deceased Julius II, was to follow 20 years later. The ageing artist created a controversial triumph, many Romans being shocked at the introduction of nudity into the Papal chambers. The master mocked his critics, portraying the Pope’s majordomo, Biago di Cesena with ass’s ears.
On leaving the chapel we pass through the Braccio Nuovo and the Museo Chiarimonti, with important statuary including ‘The Prima Porta Augustus, and ‘The River Nile’. The gallery is a full 300 metres long, a rather spooky stroll past hundreds of busts of unnamed ancient Romans. The Galeria Lapidaria, with more than 3000 stone tablets and engravings is not generally open to the public. On to the Pinacoteca, a superb gallery of painting, from the early Renaissance to the 19th century. Artists represented include Crivelli, Lippi and Giotto’s ‘Martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul’. There is another room of Raphaels here, Caravaggio’s ‘Descent from the Cross’, Reni’s ‘Crucifixion of St Peter and Pussin’s ‘Martyrdom of St Erasmus’, a particularly gruesome depiction of the saint having his intestines pulled out and wound onto a drum.
Lastly we have the little grouping of the Museo Gregoriano Profano, with statuary, busts and friezes, the Museo Pio Cristiano, with early Christian sarcophagi and art brought back from all over the planet by Catholic missionaries.
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