by Jillian Kammer
If we were to list all of the galleries and museums that make up the famous Vatican Museums, it would take up all our time just reading them. And if we listed the many artists and famous art works contained in those galleries, the list would be even longer. The work of the Vatican to list and describe the vast collection in those museums fills entire catalogs.
The vast Vatican Museums grew from one purchase of a sculpture of Laocoon and his sons as they did battle with a sea serpent, brought by Pope Julius II in 1506. From that simple purchase the Vatican Museums has swelled to dozens of galleries and literally thousands of artworks available for your viewing.
For example, established in 1837, the Etruscan Museum is actually a fairly late inductee into the Vatican Museums and it is devoted to preserving and displaying art works that were excavated in southern Etruria and surrounding vicinities. The mosaics, art work and ancient sarcophagi resemble the great works of art from the Roman Empire that are held in the Egyptian Museum.
Another fascinating collection is the Gallery of Tapestries which – as the title implies – is a museum devoted entirely to woven wall hangings from the 15th through 17th centuries. These richly colored tapestries were first shown in 1814 and they are such great works of art that they would be sought after by any major museum or collector in the world.
The variety of the Vatican Museums continues at the Gallery of Maps. Painted directly on the gallery walls are 40 panels representing regions of the world in map form. These maps are both very artistic and fascinating as well. It’s interesting to reflect that these kinds of location tools came before GPS and other modern toys we use and they were the only means the explorers that ventured out from Italy found many of the lands of the new world.
There is no doubt that the Raphael Rooms stand out as an outstanding part of the Vatican Museums collection. The rooms are arranged into four separate enclosures that are connected and each of which displays the wide diversity of works by Raphael. It is interesting that the rooms are not named for Raphael’s art work but for the efforts Raphael contributed to decorate the rooms themselves when the rooms were built between 1447 and 1455.
It is easy to know what is inside the Vatican Picture Gallery part of the collection. But it is worth your time to stop by this simply named collection to see classic art by such masters as Poussin, Giotto, Van Dyck and Perugino.
A gallery that has an imaginative name but is often misleading, is the Gregorian Museum of Profane Art. It is not about profanity in the modern sense of the word. Rather that designation only means that the works of art contained in this gallery are of a secular nature. A new citizen of the Vatican Museums, it contains such things as Roman sculptures from the Imperial period, as well as the Republican time frame, sarcophagi and other things from these eras as well.
Three years after the opening of the Gregorian Museum of Profane Art, the Carriage Pavilion opened. The building is located under the Square Garden and it is used to display the vehicles that have been used over the centuries for the Pope and other high Vatican officials to ride in. Along with the many carriages you can inspect in the Carriage Pavilion, you will also find supplemental items like pictures of parades or times when Popes were in processions, as well as the harnesses for the horses and other support items that were used for upkeep and documentation of these vehicles.
But there is no question that the crowning moment of any visit to the Vatican Museums will be the time you spend in the world renowned Sistine Chapel, to take in the huge masterpiece that Michelangelo painted on the Chapel ceiling. As you gaze up you will know this is a moment you will remember for life. But don’t miss out on Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, which he came back and added to the chapel 20 years later.
Nothing will be able to take the place of the impression you will get gazing at that ceiling. There you will witness nine panels that are used to depict Biblical characters including Noah, a number of unknown male nudes, Sibyls and the crowning moment in the piece as God himself reaches out to touch Adam’s finger and give him life. The famous writer Goethe summed up the feeling you get when you see that painting when he said:
“Without having seen the Sistine Chapel, one can form no appreciable idea of what one man is capable of achieving.”
That poetic sentiment is a good way of summarizing the amazing art work that you will find in every building when you take the time to explore the Vatican Museums.