Vatican City: St. Peter's and the Museums

I am not a religious person, but seeing St. Peter's for the first time brought tears to my eyes.  It is overwhelming!

You need to time your visit early.  R. and I were in the area on a Saturday afternoon, and the line up was wrapped around the piazza.  This is in early May when tourism is *not* at it's highest!  We had no intention of wasting 4 hours on a sunny afternoon standing in line, and so resolved to come back on a weekday morning.

The piazza is attributed to Bernini, but others, including Michelangelo, have contributed to it's design.  Bernini completed it and it is his design that stands today. If you look at an aerial view of the piazza, St. Peter's is approached by a large piazza, with two semi-circular colonnaded porticoes. It was meant to be a welcome into the heart of St. Peter's.  I described it as a "hug" to R.  This is the outside area where the Pope addresses the faithful.  It is a massive space.

We came back at 8:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, and this proved to be the correct timing. We walked right up to the entrance, went through security  and continued up to the area where you can get audio guides.  We ended up taking an English tour, instead, and I'm glad we did.  The guide was able to explain things that I'm sure we would have missed otherwise.

I was really not fully prepared for the size of St. Peter's.  It is HUGE.   Every surface is decorated and it is a tradition of each pope to add something, be it small or large. There was so much to see. My favorite was Michelangelo's "Pieta", so beautifully sculpted.  You don't have to be religious to find the subject of a mother grieving her child moving.  The walls are all covered in massive art. Our guide explained that while originally, these would have been actual paintings, all the original works have been removed for conservation and replaced by mosaics.  I was astonished.  I like mosaic works, in general, but these were done to a standard I have never seen before. You cannot tell they are mosaics - every nuance of shading and color is so precise.  Absolutely astounding.

I also loved Bernini's huge twisted baldachino, and the stained glass with the dove in the centre.  Try as I did, my camera would just not capture the dove image.

What moved me the most, for some reason, was the realization that this is still a church in active use today.  The day we were there, a wedding was taking place in one of the side chapels for the Swiss Guards (the area was covered off with curtains, but we figured it out when the bride and groom came out as our tour finished), and a baptism was also occurring. These two events really touched me. 

The Vatican Museums are a must see.  We arranged our tickets for a Friday night.  I figured there would be fewer people and the lighting would offer a different perspective and I was right on both counts.  When you come into the Museums (again, through security) there is a large patio that overlooks some of the grounds.  Although not yet dark, they had large oil candles burning. The view of the gardens, lit by candles looking towards the dome of St. Peter's, was a serene scene.

The Museums house some of the worlds best art.  As an art history major, I suspect my degree would be pulled if it were discovered that I went to Rome and did not visit the Museums.  We wandered through gallery after gallery of art from all the ages. We saw tapestries from the 1500's, mosaics of what I think are the different geographies of Italy, the Raphael Rooms, the modern art collection (which I found fascinating, despite some guides which claim that it is horrendous - not true!), all on the way to the Sistine Chapel.  The chapel is beautiful, it really is.  To think about how this was painted by one man over 10 years - and took twice as long to clean, restore and conserve - is humbling.  Most of us are familiar with some of the famous images from the ceiling - God creating Adam (the fingers touching), some of the muses (Ikea had a poster for years of one of the muses).  Seeing it all together is simply....beautiful and humbling.

I did enjoy the modern art collection.  Some of the art is gifts, some has been procured.  All of it is religious in nature. And it comes from all over the world, so it almost serves as an ethnographic collection as well.  There were some gems in there: a small painting by Salvidor Dali, a sculpture of what looked like small blobs of metal clouds, connected by one or two points, ascending upwards, a clay sculpture of Jesus leading a flock of sheep, a stained glass of Madonna and Child in black and white.

All in all, it was worth the visit no matter what your religious or spiritual background to see the jewels of Vatican City.