Vatican Museums – Ceilings, Walls, and Floors

The Vatican Museums has many different museums and sections and after we left the Antiquities Department we went through a series of rooms with lots of art work, often one starting right after another one. This is where my limited knowledge of art came into play. While I know who the major artists are, I can not pick out their works or know whose was featured where. If this trip had just been to Rome I would have taken some time to study up or research, but since we were covering so much on this trip I just did not have time. So the pictures are of things that I liked or that caught my attention, which is many cases was the ceilings, floors or walls of these different room. They are amazing – I was so in awe of how beautiful they were and covered room after room.

We visited the following museum/collections Pio Christian Museum, Pinacoteca (picture gallery), Tapestries, Ceramics (18th-19th century), Miniature mosaics, Collection of Modern Religious Art, Missionary-Ethnological Museum, Museo Sacro, Gregorian Profane Museum, and Vatican Historical Museum. We also went through several of the Vatican Palaces including: Belvedere Palace, Apartment of St. Pius V, Sala delle Dame, Room of the Immaculate Conception, Raphael Stanze, Room of the Chiaroscuri, Chapel of Nicholas V and Chapel of Urban VIII.

There are what I thought were the highlights.

This is the ceiling of the Sala della Muse This is a close up of the center This is the Belvedere Torso by Apollonius A sign on the wall. Coffered ceiling of the Sala Rotonda Gilded bronze statue of Hercules from the Theater of Pompey I liked this wood carving/panel on the wall A mosaic floorAnother amazing hallway, staircase I believe this is the insignia of Pope Leo XIII Look at this absolutely gorgeous ceiling Another oneAnd another one This is a close up of one of the decorative circles The gallery of maps is this long narrow room with 40 different maps frescoed on the walls based on drawings done between 1580 and 1585 by Ignazio Danti, a famous geographer of the time. These maps depict the Italian regions and Papal properties at the time of Pope Gregory VIII. While the maps are interesting, the real highlight of the room is the ceiling.

Here you can see some of the map on the side This is just the ceiling A close up of one section of the ceiling Here is a painting on a rotunda

At one point we walked passed a window and it was pouring outside – thankfully we were inside. Here we could see St. Peter’s. To be continued…..