Vatican Museums

Let us dwell even just for a moment on the name: Museums 

It is a plural, yes, they are called Vatican Museums because they are a group of museums and not a single one.

 Let’s see the numbers that characterize them: 54 museums; 70,000 works of art, of which 20,000 are visible; 

1400 rooms made up of galleries, and chapels, the palace where these wonders are kept is a work of art. Vatican museums represent one of the largest art collections in the world, including works ranging from the Renaissance to the 20th century.

Visiting the Vatican museums is an immersive experience, your sight will be lost in the breadth of the rooms, the game of lights, the ceilings and floors, without forgetting that it is also possible to visit the garden, (only with a guided tour). A visit to the Vatican museums seems to be an unmissable stop during a visit to Rome. 

Let’s consider why the Church decided to create such a wonderful place. 

Well, Art has always been considered the best way to lead to faith and a full understanding of the Supernatural and of the Dity as it permits access to Humans’ most hidden feelings and emotions, so the Vatican Museums are to be considered a way to Access to the beauty created by God through the special abilities and great artists who were also of course believers.  Among the museums we remember,  the Gregorian Museum which includes sections dedicated to Etruscan Art was inaugurated in 1837,  it was one of the first to include works of Etruscan provenance in Italy, and they were mostly from cities that were part of ancient Etruria which at the time were part of the Papal States. 

 The interest and magnificence of the Egyptian museum are astonishing due to the great interest and historical bond between Jewish culture and Egyptians, also reported in the Bible’s. And Profane Art;

The profane Art sections host  the   collections  which largely, were  part of  findings revealed during the excavations in Rome, previously preserved by the aristocratic families of Rome who often gave birth to the Popes, across the centuries. So when a family member ascended to the papal throne their private collections became part of the Vatican collections.  Art is considered the main path to faith. Vatican Museums were officially founded in the 16th century during the flourishment of the Renaissance, in fact here we find works by Michelangelo Raffaello Caravaggio.

The Sistine Chapel is very famous and unmissable, Michelangelo’s supreme work for the vault and the fresco of the altar expresses biblical themes in pictorial form. The Sistine has been defined by some, as “Biblia pauperorum”, since it allowed the comprehension of biblical themes even for simple people,  let’s not forget that the side walls are   the work of some of the greatest Italian artists of the second half of the fifteenth century such as Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio , Domenico Ghirlandaio, Luca Signorelli, Piero di Cosimo, Cosimo Rosselli and other and present areas designed to host Raffaello Sanzio’s tapestries. Older, less famous but no less beautiful or important is the Niccolina Chapel which can be visited with a private tour, upon request. This amazing, almost unknown, work of art was made by the famous Pinturicchio, who in the same period was decorating the Cathedral of Orvieto, he had to interrupt as the Pope called him in Rome to create the Niccolina and to decorate another artistic jewel present in the Vatican museums, the  Borgia Apartment which includes six rooms of monumental importance: 

The Borgia Apartment. Today,  it hosts part of the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Vatican Museums inaugurated by Paul VI (1973), it includes  : the Halls of the Sibyls and the Creed in the Borgia Tower; those of the Liberal Arts, of the Saints and of the Mysteries, aligned in the wing built by Nicholas V (1447-1455) and defined as “secret chambers” in the Diary of Johannes Burckhardt, master of ceremonies of Pope Alexander; finally the Hall of the Pontiffs in the oldest wing of Nicholas III (1277-1280); The wonders that we can admire in the Contemporary art collection are works by Chagall. Dali’ De Chirico, Gaugain, Kandinsky, Matisse Van Gogh,  just to give  few names so again  Art within Art!

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