The
Vatican Museums is a huge collection of art ammassed by the popes from
the Renaissance onwards.
Sistine Chapel
This was frescoed by Michelangelo
between 1508 and 1512. The main panels show scenes from the Old and New
Testaments. The most famous is the "Creation of Adam" which
is on one of the centre ceiling panels. Others include "The Deluge",
the "Creation of the Sun and Moon" and "Original Sin".
On the end wall is "The Last Judgement" by Michelangelo completed
in 1541 after seven years of work. It shows souls of the dead rising up
to face the wrath of God. The dead are torn from their graves and hauled
up to face Christ the Judge.
The Egyptian Collection
This contains relics from ancient
Egypt found from the 19th and 20th century excavations, and from Roman
times. Included are a statues, a mummy, mummy cases and a Book of the
Dead.
Other Rooms.
EGYPTIAN MUSEUM
It consists of steleae and inscriptions from various ages, sarcophagi
and mummies, Roman statuary (from the first and second century A.D.) designed
to imitate or interpret the forms and aesthetics of Egyptian statuary,
protohistoric and Roman ceramics, cuneiform tablets and mesopotamic seals,
assirian bas-reliefs from the palaces of Sargon the IInd (722-705 B.C.)
and Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) in Nineveth.
CHIARAMONTI MUSEUM
It was founded by Pope Pius VII (Chiaramonti) and includes: the Corridoio
(Corridor), the Galleria Lapidaria and the Braccio Nuovo (New Side). In
the Corridor, divide into 60 sections, is an interminable series of statues,
busts, sarcofhagi, reliefs, etc: about 800 Greek-Roman works. In the Galleria
Lapidaria there are over 5000 pagan and Christian inscriptions. In the
Braccio Nuovo, the Statue of Augustus of Prima Porta, the Group of the
Nile and the Doriforos, deserve particular attention.
MUSEUM OF POPES CLEMENT XIV AND PIUS VI
In the Palazzetto of Belvedere the visitor finds Greek and Roman sculptures
like the Apollo Belvedere (a Roman copy from the original Greek sculpture,
130-140 A.D.), the famous group of Laocoön by Agesander, Polydorus
and Athanodorus, the statue of Hermes (copied during Hadrian's reign from
an original Greek bronze of 4th century B.C.), the colossal statue of
Antinous (photo), and moreover the Canova's Cabinet, the Gallery of Statues,
the Room of the Animals, etc.
GREGORIAN MUSEUM OF ETRUSCAN ART
FThe Etruscan Museum was founded by Gregory XIV in 1837 to house the works
coming from the excavations carried out in southern Etruria. It was later
enriched with further acquisitions and donations, and became one of the
most important for Etruscan art.
ANTIQUARIUM ROMANUM
Divided into three small rooms, the Antiquarium houses mainly ancient
Roman objects and works of the minor arts.
VASE COLLECTION
The collection consists of Greek and Etruscan black figure ceramics.
THE BIGA ROOM
This room, built during the pontificate of Pius VI (1775-99), is named
after the Biga, the two-horse chariot located in the middle of the display
area. The Roman Biga dates to the first century B.C.
GALLERY OF THE CANDELABRA
Once a loggia, the gallery was enclosed during the pontificate of Pius
VI. Arches supported by columns and pillars were used to divide the space,
which was then hung with candelabra, one for each arch: hence the name
of the gallery.
GALLERY OF THE TAPESTRIES
Decorated during the pontificate of Pius VI, the gallery is named after
the tapestries which were first exhibited there in 1814.
GALLERY OF THE MAPS
The Gallery is named after the maps painted on the walls in 40 different
panels, each devoted to a region, island or particular territory of Italy.
APARTMENT OF ST.PIUS V
Gallery of St. Pius V: tapestries produced in Tournai in the middle of
the sixteenth century and by Pieter van Aelst.
Chapel decorated with frescoes by Giorgio Vasari and Jacopo Zucchi.
SOBIESKI ROOM
Named for the painting which takes up the entire north wall with its depiction
of the victory of John III Sobieski, King of Poland, over the Turks outside
the walls of Vienna in 1683. The work was painted by Jan Matejko (1883).
ROOM OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
Located in the Borgia Tower, this room is decorated with frescoes by Francesco
Podesti depicting scenes based on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
RAPHAEL'S ROOMS AND LOGGIAS
The four rooms commonly known as the "Rooms of Raphael" were
part of - togheter with the "Chiaroscuri" room, the Old Room
of the Swiss, the cubicle with its adjoining heater, the Nicholine Chapel
and the Loggia - the new residence chosen by Julius II on the third floor
of the building.
The series of four communicating rooms was a reconstruction carried out
by Nicholas V (1447-55) of the thirteenth century palace of Nicholas III
(1277-80). Towards the end of the first decade of the sixteenth century
Perugino, Sodoma, Baldassarre Peruzzi and Bramantino were all at work
decorating them, but in 1509 Julius II dismissed them and commissioned
Raphael to decorate the whole of this part of the Vatican. He worked there
for about ten years, but only three of the rooms were completed before
his death in 1520, and the direct intervention of the master is certain
in only two of them.
COLLECTION OF MODERN RELIGIOUS ART
The collection includes Hundreds of paintings, sculptures, engravings
and designs donated to the Holy See by private individuals and, in some
cases, by the artists themselves. Housed in 55 different rooms, the exposition
was inaugurated by Pope Paul VI in 1973. The itinerary begins in the Borgia
Apartment, named for Alexander VI, who had the room decorated with the
now famous frescoes, most of which are the work of either Pinturicchio
or his students.
The collection includes works of Ottone Rosai, Auguste Rodin, Carlo Carrà,
Mario Sironi, Aligi Sassu, Renato Guttuso, Marc Chagall, Paul Gauguin,
Maurice Utrillo, Giorgio Morandi, Filippo de Pisis, Henry Moore, Paul
Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Georges Braque, Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla,
Giorgio De Chirico, Jacques Villon, Bernard Buffet, Oskar Kokoschka, Pablo
Picasso, Francis Bacon, Diego Velasquez, etc.
Michelangelo:
Last Judgement,
Christ the Judge (detail)
SISTINE CHAPEL
Deservedly one of the most famous places in the world, the Sistine
Chapel is the site where the conclave for the election of the popes
and other solemn pontifical ceremonies are held. Built to the design of
Baccio Pontelli by Giovannino de Dolci between 1475 and 1481, the chapel
takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who commissioned it. It is a large
rectangle with a barrel-vaulted ceiling and it is divided into two unequal
parts by a marble screen. The screen and the transenna were built by Mino
da Fiesole and other artists.
The frescoes on the long walls illustrate parallel events in the Lives
of Moses and Christ and constitute a complex of extraordinary interest
executed between 1481 and 1483 by Perugino, Botticelli, Cosimo Rosselli
and Domenico Ghirlandaio, with their respective groups of assistants,
who included Pinturicchio, Piero di Cosimo and others; later Luca Signorelli
also joined the group.
The barrel-vaulted ceiling is entirely covered by the famous frescoes
which Michelangelo painted between 1508 and 1512 for Julius II. The original
design was only to have represented the Apostles, but was modified at
the artist's insistence to encompass an enormously complex iconographic
theme which may be synthesized as the representation of mankind waiting
for the coming of the Messiah. More than twenty years later, Michelangelo
was summoned back by Paul III (1534-49) to paint the Last Judgement on
the wall behind the altar. He worked on it from 1536 to 1541.
APOSTOLIC LIBRARY
The Vatican Library was founded by Nicholas V (1447-55). Sixtus V (1585-90)
commissioned the present building from Domenico Fontana, who built the
long gallery and the Salone.
VATICAN PICTURE GALLERY
The Vatican Picture Gallery was founded by Pope Pius VI (1775-99). Only
in 1932 was a permanent site established in a building commissionated
by Pius XI (1922-39) from a design by the architect Luca Beltrami.
The gallery includes works of Giotto, Gentile da Fabriano, Beato Angelico,
Perugino, Pinturicchio, Leonardo, Tiziano, Guercino, van Dyck, Poussin,
etc.
GREGORIAN MUSEUM OF PROFANE ART
The special building constructed to house the museum (founded by Gregorius
XVI in 1844) runs parallel to the Pinacoteca and was opened in 1970. The
works are arranged according to didactic criteria, liberated as far as
possible from arbitrary integration and excessive restorations. The four
sections contain Roman copies and re-elaboration of Greek originals, Roman
sculptures of repubblican and early imperial periods, sarcophagi, later
Roman sculptures.
CHRISTIAN MUSEUM
Founded in 1854 by Pius IX in the Lateran Palace to house the Christian
antiquities found during the excavations of the catacombs, the Museo Pio
Cristiano was transferred to the Vatican in 1963.
MISSIONARY MUSEUM OF ETHNOLOGY
The material is vast and various and is presented according to didactic
principles so as to document the religious cult of the various civilisation
which have flourished in other continents over an enormous span of time,
from centuries before the coming of Christ right up to our times.
CARRIAGE PAVILION
It was founded under the auspices of Paul VI and laid out in 1973 in a
building constructed under the Square Garden.
The collection contains: the carriages of popes and cardinals, with various
harnesses; graphic and photographic documentation of solemn processions
containing berlins and carriages; black landaus for daily conveyance and
the first automobiles used by the popes.