My mother-in-law told us that when she visited the Sistine Chapel in the 1950s she could lie face-up on the floor to take in Michelangelo's magnificent ceiling. Today there are forty-thousand daily visitors each of whom hopes to commune with the famous ceiling. Even if the chapel weren't crowded at all hours of the day, I'm certain that lying down on the ground to claim a comfortable vantage point would not be permitted.
The summer crowds are a concern that might best be dealt with by reserving tickets in advance. If one does this through a tour, one can enter earlier than the general public. We used the tour group Viator, or Italy Wonders. Unfortunately, our tour skipped so many essential parts of the Vatican Museums that I can't recommend the group, but we did get to see Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and Raphael's School of Athens which is certainly what most visitors want to see.
Our tour, and dozens of others, met across the street from this entrance before the Vatican Museums opened. While waiting we bought ourselves some overpriced coffee served black.
The Belvedere Courtyard with a taunting view of some other areas of the Vatican Museums I assumed we were going to see.
The Vatican Museums' long halls are done extremely well:
Tapestry designed by Raphael depicting the resurrection of Christ:
The far end of the Gallery of Maps:
Down below:
Tiles underfoot:
Photography is forbidden in the Sistine Chapel not, as we were told, for religious reasons but because the Vatican sold the photo rights at the time of the restoration. Instead I give you these amazing views from the Sistine Chapel Virtual Tour.
There should have been a lot more. No tour (except ours apparently) would be complete without stopping in the Museo Pio-Clementino. There in the Octagonal Court one can see the Apollo Belvedere, a masterpiece of Classical Antiquity greatly admired a few generations ago and proudly displayed on the Vatican Museum's ever-improving website:
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The summer crowds are a concern that might best be dealt with by reserving tickets in advance. If one does this through a tour, one can enter earlier than the general public. We used the tour group Viator, or Italy Wonders. Unfortunately, our tour skipped so many essential parts of the Vatican Museums that I can't recommend the group, but we did get to see Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and Raphael's School of Athens which is certainly what most visitors want to see.
Our tour, and dozens of others, met across the street from this entrance before the Vatican Museums opened. While waiting we bought ourselves some overpriced coffee served black.
Vatican City is not large. The magnificent dome of St. Peter's Basilica overlooks the museum grounds where tours regrouped.
The Belvedere Courtyard with a taunting view of some other areas of the Vatican Museums I assumed we were going to see.
The Vatican Museums' long halls are done extremely well:
Too nice to walk on:
The ceiling is painted to look like relief. Still, the cracks indicate it's got to be a conservator's nightmare.
Tapestry designed by Raphael depicting the resurrection of Christ:
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| Raphael The Resurrection of Christ (large detail) |
Tapestry designed by Raphael:
The Gallery of Maps:
The world turned upside-down: Sicily, with the south oriented to the top.
Exposure to the elements:
Up above:
Down below:
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| Roman mosaic |
Fine woodwork:
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| Gianfrancesco Penni or Giulio Romano The Donation of Constantine Sala di Costantino |
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| Raphael Ceiling of the Room of Heliodorus |
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| Raphael The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, 1511–12 |
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| Raphael The Mass at Bolsena, 1512 |
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| Raphael The Meeting of Leo the Great and Attila |
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| Raphael The School of Athens (large detail) |
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| Raphael The School of Athens (detail with Euclid or Archimedes) |
Border details:
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| Border detail |
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| Raphael Disputation of the Holy Sacrament |
 A gift of the Musée Rodin, 1959: |
| Auguste Rodin The Thinker, c. 1880, cast 1956 |
Pierre Matisse donated preparatory designs created by his father Henri Matisse for the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence.
This is a Pope by Francis Bacon, but is it a screaming Pope?
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| Francis Bacon Study for Velázquez Pope II, 1961 |
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| Michelangelo Buonarroti The Sistine Chapel Ceiling |
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| Michelangelo Buonarroti The Last Judgment |
There should have been a lot more. No tour (except ours apparently) would be complete without stopping in the Museo Pio-Clementino. There in the Octagonal Court one can see the Apollo Belvedere, a masterpiece of Classical Antiquity greatly admired a few generations ago and proudly displayed on the Vatican Museum's ever-improving website:
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| Roman copy after Leochares Apollo Belvedere |
And, of course, the Laocoön Group, a Hellenistic masterwork which I think speaks more to our own time:
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| The Laocoön Group |
Another essential stop would have to be the Hall of the Muses to see the Belvedere Torso, a large sculptural fragment which had a profound influence on Michelangelo.
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| Apollonius of Athens The Belvedere Torso |
And we're done!
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