Wednesday, April 27, 2016 – Today we are going to St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City to attend mass with Pope Francis and to tour St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. (I cannot wait to tour the Sistine Chapel.) We ended up saving the tour of the Basilica for Friday, it was just too much to see in one day.

Vatican City is a city/state in the middle of Rome. They are governed in an elective monarchy and the Pope (head of the Catholic Church) has supreme legislative, executive and judicial power over the state of Vatican City.  The current Basilica started construction in April of 1506 and completed in November of 1626.

Site 58:St. Peter’s Basilica is a Renaissance church, designed and created by Michelangelo, Maderno, Bramante and Bernini. This church is one of the largest in the world.

Site 59: St. Peter’s Square is the large plaza directly in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Site 62: The Sistine Chapel famous for the frescos by Michelangelo. More on that later.

Site 64: Vatican City, home of the Pope

Site 65: Vatican Gardens with sculptures, fountains and plants.

Site 66: Vatican Museums with work of de Vinci, Titian, Bernini, Raphael and many others.

It is an early 8:00 am start from our hotel (not that 8:00 is early for us working class, but we did have a few retires with us, and besides, we were on vacation). We wanted to get to the entrance of the square by 8:30 to make sure we had a good spot when the gates open at 9:30. The wait seemed to go by really fast and soon we were inside the square staring at everything. I was trying to pick out the fountain from the Angels and Demons movie and trying to count the number of statues along the rooftop of the square area. (In case you are wondering, there are 140).

Lower left is Mom and Kathy waiting for the Pope. The lower right photo gives you an idea of the size of the columns in front of the Basilica. This photo is from Friday when we returned to Vatican City to tour the Basilica and to Shop. I put it in this section so you could get an idea of the size of the columns in the pictures above.

The Pope rode along the paths of the crowd and stopped to kiss babies on the head. I didn’t get a close-up picture of him but we did get fairly close as he rode past. The photos below show the stage / alter during mass. The mass was in Roman, Italian, English, Japanese, German – they had several translators. There were a few very large Jumbotrons that gave everyone a good close-up view of Pope Francis.

After mass we toured the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. I cannot even describe the museums and the grounds. The artwork in the museums started in the 1300’s and progressed through the centuries as you traveled through the museums. There were so many statues, paintings, tapestries and other types of sculptures it was really hard to take it all in.  I will try to pick out a few of the better photos to show you, but they simply cannot do everything justice. I actually do not even remember how many separate museums there are, but each was very unique with the century, artist and type of artwork.

There was artwork was on every wall, the ceilings, the floors, everywhere you looked there was something beautiful and fascinating to see. One entire hallway (huge hallway / room) was the Map Room and every painting was of an ancient map. I bought a book of the map room for my husband Tod. He collects maps and has them from all over the world, some he gathers on his travels and others people give him. Even my sister Linda sends him maps of different countries when she is traveling.

This statue of Perseus holding the severed head of Medusa was carved by Antonio Cavova at the end of 1800 – beginning of 1801 (in only a few months).

Notice the fig leaf? During the restoration of the artwork, all of the male statues private areas were fitted/covered with fig leaf’s. It looks like an add-on and out of place (which they all were).

It reminds me of my Grandmother using one of her lace handkerchiefs  to cover  a small ashtray my Grandfather had of a statue of a partially nude woman.

The place I had been waiting to see was the Sistine Chapel where Conclave is held by the cardinals for the election of a new Pope. The ceiling, walls and floor are all decorated with frescos and tapestries. I really had been waiting to see the famous ceiling that was painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512 (while lying on scaffolding).   Other 15^th century artists work displayed in the chapel include Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino and Raphael.

I couldn’t wait to see Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam”. If you are not familiar with it, you have very likely seen a portion of the photo which portrays Adam and God’s hands almost touching. It signifies God breathing the breath of life into Adam. So from the picture below, imagine just the hand of God and the hand of Adam – I am sure you have seen that picture someplace.

Fun Fact: “The Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo and “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci are the two most reproduced works of religious art in the world.

You are not allowed to talk or take picture inside the Sistine Chapel so I took these from the Wiki on-line. (Although some people were taking photos and talking, it was annoying.) I wish I knew how to give the artist credit for these two photos.

How do you top that type of a day? Well we all agreed on Gelato Ice Cream for a treat. There were Gelato shops all over and no, this was not the first day we stopped for ice cream. It was however the day we did not ask specifically about the size of the serving. It was ginormous! And you know what? We ate every darn bite! Needless to say, we did not stop for dinner that night. Not one of us could eat another thing. And yes by God, we did each have our own dessert plate just like the one below! All equally disgustingly too huge for one person, but, that did not stop us from eating every bite.

It was another early night, I think Kathy was sleeping before my hand reached the light switch, but trust me, I was not far behind her in falling sound asleep.

Next post – Pompeii.