Art History Blog #4

The class spent our Friday afternoon exploring St. Peters Basilica and the Vatican Museum. The most obvious must-see locations in Rome, the place was so loaded with obnoxious/rude tour groups that the winding halls to the Sistine Chapel were more like a trip through Dante’s inferno into the depths of hell. Despite the heat and the tourist stank, I had the incredible opportunity to see some of the most infamous works of art ever created. It’s like art history’s greatest hits.

We began with St. Peter’s Basilica which is pretty much to most major church on the planet as it is the location where the Pope gives Sunday mass. The façade of St. Peter’s and the corresponding colonnade were meant to draw in pilgrims into the Vatican. Home to the tomb to St. Peter (one of Christ’s disciples and considered the first Pope), the location was originally the location of a basilica founded by Constantine which was then renovated to house the vast numbers of pilgrims. The building is an example of high Renaissance architecture and Baroque decoration, a synthesis of Classical purity and direct emotional content.

Exellent examples of this Baroque directness are Michelangelo’s Pieta (now hidden behind smudged glass and a swarm of tourists because of some jerk who had to come at it with a hammer one time) as well as the statues surrounding the Baldacchino by Bernini François Duquesnoy, Andrea Bolgi and Giuliano Finelli.

The Vatican museum was sweltering, smelly and probably unsafe for art. I nearly punched an old man who attempted to obstruct my frontal photograph of only my most favorite sculpture ever, the Laocoon as well as being shoved into a few other significant works of ancient sculpture. After many miles of Raphael frescoes and equisite hallways, we arrived in the Sistine chapel. In the typical Italian fashion, the security guards were too busy making Friday night plans on their cellphones to enforce the no photography/no talking policy in the chapel. I only about 50 pictures of Michelangelo’s Last Judgement (my all-time favorite Renaissance work) and Birth of Adam as well as the surrounding frescoes by Perugino, Botticelli,Rosselli and Ghirlandaio.

And just like that, I checked about a hundred things off my bucket list. Gratzi, Roma!

(To see more pictures from this and other excursions, remember to look at my Facebook albums.)