Roman Holiday: Day 2 – The Sistine Chapel

Vatican Museum

We were up early on Friday morning so that we could get to the Sistine Chapel before the crowd. After breakfast we went to the Metro Station and bought a daily ticket for each of us. We didn’t attempt to figure out the bus system in the short period of time we had, but the Metro saved us a lot of time.

Travel Tip: Ride the Metro! It is so inexpensive to get a day pass that is good for the local Rome transportation system including the Metro and buses. You’ll save yourself so much time and, most importantly, energy!

Our early start apparently wasn’t early enough, unfortunately. By the time we arrived to the Vatican City, the line for the museum and Sistine Chapel stretched from the entrance on the north wall, around the northeast corner and down the east side of the city. We were about to lose hope when we heard the phrase “two hour wait” – and it was still an hour before the museum opened. We had seen several tour company guides advertising tour groups. Michael and I aren’t usually much on tours, so we had ignored them for the most part. It was Kara who decided to approach them and get more info. That was the most brilliant decision ever (and preemptively made up for the major error in her judgment that I’ll get to later)!

She discovered that for a little more money we could join the tour group that was forming and skip the entire line. We had a lot to see and do while we were in Rome, so the thought of saving three hours of our day made the extra bit of money seem more than reasonable.

We enjoyed the tour, well, for the most part anyway. About 10 minutes into the 3-hour tour, Kara’s headset stopped working. Michael was good enough to give his headset to her so that she could hear what the guide was saying. I think Michael enjoyed the tour better without listening to the guide anyway. Kara and I shared funny or interesting tidbits with him as we went along.

We saw several interesting things in the museum before arriving at the Sistine Chapel. One of the most interesting things was the painting on the ceiling that was made to look like carving or molding.

We learned a lot about Michelangelo and the hidden meanings in his paintings. I don’t even know where to begin! He was fascinated by the human form. At an early age he was allowed to assist in the dissection of male human corpses. He was not allowed to dissect females. Many experts believe this to be the reason that many of Michelangelo’s female sculptures had feminine faces, but masculine bodies.

He (nor anyone else) was allowed to dissect the heart or the brain – where the soul was believed to reside. It is interesting, then, that in the Creation of Adam painting in the Sistine Chapel, The cloud around God is the very image of the brain, and also a human heart turned on its side.

This image is also very controversial for many other reasons. One glaring oddity is the woman wrapped up in the left arm of God. Many scholars claim that it is Eve – mainly because it would be scandalous to think that God was with a beautiful woman in heaven!

It seems that Michelangelo was pretty much ordered by the Pope to paint the Sistine Chapel. Apparently he and the Pope didn’t really get along, and fought frequently. Michelangelo was quite a cheeky fellow, and so exacted his revenge on the Pope through subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) means via his paintings. After one fight, Michelangelo was especially angry. He painted a blatant naked ass on the robe of an angel flying away from God. The Pope was furious! He fired Michelangelo and ordered the entire work to be destroyed. So, the removal of the paintings began. Then, one day shortly after Michelangelo had left, the Pope walked into the Chapel that was now free of the scaffolding and painter’s cloths. He realized immediately upon seeing the masterpiece on the ceiling that he had made a terrible mistake. He stopped the removal of the painting at once. He begged Michelangelo to return and finish. It took the Pope several years to convince him to return. Michelangelo repaired the portion of the ceiling that had been scraped away, but the section was weakened. This section fell during a bombing of Rome and is still missing today.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of the interesting facts we learned, but I won’t bore you. If you're interested, I’m sure that you’ll follow the links above, or do your own research. The rest of Friday was fabulous as well, but it’s getting late, so I’ll have to save it for another blog.