The Vatican Museum

I presented a report on the Merchant of Venice this morning, so I haven't been able to update about my adventures (The report went well).  But yesterday we went to the Vatican Museum, and although we were there for 4 or so hours there was a lot more to look at.  That's a theme in the Vatican City.  Unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries so I wasn't able to document everything. 

My three favorite moments were the pope's contemporary/modern art collection, the painting gallery where you witness the brink of the Renaissance (in Giotto's work), and the Sistine chapel.  Being in the Sistine chapel was worth coming all this way (Mom and Dad!).  My best description is I've never felt like I could read so much about the artist in a work (or wanted to meet artist so much!), especially one so long gone.  Now I'm realizing that it was probably so incredible and striking because I've somewhat modeled my own art practice and art theories after him.  Ah!


It's the Vatican Museum.  Collections of popes and cardinals.

Giotto: he's the father of Renaissance paintings, you can compare these naturalistic figures to medieval ones.  From left to right, the crucifixion of St. Peter (too humble to be crucified in the same way as christ... also, happy St Peter's day everyone!) , Christ, beheading of an unknown saint o:

 Detail of St. Anthony

Painting of St. Jerome by Raphael's master il Perugi.  St Jerome translated the bible to Greek and removed a thorn from a lion's paw (having never seen a lion, he had to extrapolate a lion from the house cats he'd seen.  Cute!)

Raphael:  the transfiguration of Christ. The emotions you see and the synthesis of two biblical events together was novel for Raphael to do.

 ...more St Jerome by Leonardo da Vinci. The square around his face is because that part was used to make a chair when Leonardo was less liked .............(also this is a print, not the actual painting)

Caravaggio

St. Peter's dome!  You can see where we climbed to, at the base of that cylinder on the top.

Greyhounds of Italy

 Cats of Rome

Note the ceiling.  Along the walls are maps of popes' home towns.

Anyways, we had class yesterday evening and then I went out to dinner and had a mixed fried things plate (fried mashed potatoes, fried rice, fried olive...) (hannah-In the past few days, I've had pistachio, nutella, raspberry, dark chocolate, truffle, and passion fruit gelatos.  Apparently pagliacci has good gelatos so we'll frequent that as I withdraw from pizza/gelato diet).  So we had a long day of Mona's class and Ricardo's class today, (and I had falafel... something to stay in the US for) and I'm about to relax and catch up on sleep before we depart to Florence TOMORROW!

Dad, what kind of espresso should I pick up while I'm here?

St. Peter's Basilica: too many pictures

This morning we made a journey to St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City!  Ricardo couldn't take us so we used Rick Steves instead.  Most memorable was Michelangelo's Pieta, climbing to the top of the dome (Dad, do you remember the dome in France we climbed?), and seeing the pope.  The Basilica was completely overwhelming, and I wish I could represent better how enormous and elaborate it is here.  I was able to recognize a lot of the features of the church and differences/similarities between Catholicism and reformed churches, so it felt like a mini pilgrimage.   My friends went to Sunday mass there.  So then I came back and went on an adventure to the cat sanctuary and the Colosseum area.  Now I suppose I have homework, we're doing a presentation on the Merchant of Venice later this week.

A good way to start off.  Americano of course (Walt)

In St. Peter's Square

The facade of St Peter's Basilica!  It took 120 years to build!

The atrium (?)

Entrance

One transept

I love mosaics!

Pieta by Michelangelo. I am presenting a report on him later.

 Organs of Rome!  I got to hear it played because there were services while we were there.

We took the stairs all the way to the top of the dome.  

Here's the nave, with the most fantastic stained glass I've seen

I was there!

St Peter's square from the top of the dome

A lovely view of the city

I was there too!

Cezanne on the stairs. Pretty crowded and a little scary.

Everyone likes the pope!

There he is.  He gave a blessing and greeted us in 5 different languages.

Nice Italian cat at the Largo Argentina cat sanctuary.

Another sick cat

Cats in the sun

Little Italian truck. I've seen 1 SUV the whole time I've been here.

The Colosseum, San Clemente Church, San Pietro in Vincoli

We had a fantastic 5 course dinner last night with the group.  Most memorable were fried cheese/rice balls, a vegetable plate (for the vegetarians), rigatoni (Hannah we will try this preparation at home), fresh potato chips, and a custard lemon cake.  Today we continued to make progress with Ricardo's intensive Rome tour, and I think I have some more freckles.

Drinking Ace (achae) and eating carrots.  Closest I've come to training (Grace Ann), although maybe living on the 8th floor and walking a lot counts for something.

The Colosseum!

Where the emperor sat is now marked with a cross, although apparently Christians weren't actually forced to become gladiators.

The exterior of San Clemente. We couldn't photograph the inside, but there are beautiful mosaics and frescoes. The top floor was built only (...) in the 15th century, and we were able to go into the church it was built on top of (11th century) and then below house that was built on top of (2nd century).

Organ in the San Pietro in Vincoli (means St Peter in chains).

Moses by Michelangelo

Pizza for lunch!

The Forum on Friday

Today we took a trip to the Roman Forum!  It was great fun but very hot and sunny, although I managed pretty well.

Michelangelo designed this Piazza by the capital.

Here's a statue of Romulus and Remus being fed by the mother wolf.  

 St. Peter was kept in this prison before he was executed.

What a nice day.  Also, you can see how we were in the basement of these temples, because the base of the column is the floor.  As Ricardo says, "you feel like a tiny little bug."

The temple of Saturn (god of time), the temple of Concordia (representing agreement between Christians and Gentiles), the arch for the returning armies of Septimius Severus, and Capital Hill, which was remodeled by Michelangelo. This area was restored under Mussolini in the 20's.

 Ricardo's 'multimedial presentation!'

Statues in the House of the Vestals, whose job was to keep a fire going.  Christians took off the heads of these pagan statues.

Inside the Temple of Romulus, which was clearly re appropriated for Christian use

 Marble statue remain at Palatine hill, which was where the emperor and affluent Romans lived as far back as 800 BC.  Reminiscent of LOTR.

Go Dog Go (Roman pine) trees by a swimming pool

Shadie by Augustus' palace!

 A sculpture fragment unearthed in the area.

Tweedle dee and tweedle dum (Hannah and Ellen) overlooking the city

Not sunburnt!

Sleeping seagull. Planning for the next attack according to Ricardo.

Italian dog.  They are all too hot here.