We were given the whole day until Italian class of today, so a group of us decided to go to the Vatican to explore the whole complex. We left nice and early for the bus that would take us right to the entry to the square. The walk into Piazza San Pietro was pretty great, and after a long walk down the main street the space opened up into a very large oval-shaped public space. The area was closed in by massive colonnades on either side and capped by the magnificent St. Peter’s Basilica, probably the most famous church in the world. We walked around the Piazza for a little while enjoying the epic proportions, the awesome statues that follow the colonnade around, the fountains and the awesome obelisk. One thing I noticed that was pretty interesting was how although there were people walking everywhere, it really seemed like a normal space filled with people going to work or just passing by. Whether it was due to the time or out of respect for the space I am not sure, but there was a general air of serenity and emotional weight that kept the tourists at bay (sadly I will eat these words often today) and created an oddly calm space.
After walking around we scurried to the entrance to the grounds when we saw the mobs start to converge. Our first stop was up to the Cupola since we figured it would be least navigable once the crowds got in. We took some epic stairs up to a great landing space on top of the main roof before climbing up into the inner ring of the space. The views down into the space and up to the top of the dome were both fantastic, although there was a chain-link fence set at eye-level so it was pretty tough to get good pictures. From here we entered the second set of stairs to the top of the dome. The placement of these stairs in between the two shells of the dome created a pretty wonky space that had us leaning severely around the curve. At one point I took a picture of the space and it looks like was just holding the camera wrong no matter how much I look at it. As we walked up there were awesome small little windows punched through the massive girth of the outer shell that provided great views out. After an awesome diagonal stair that snaked back and forth along the dome we came to the pièce de résistance: a spiral staircase so steep and narrow that a rope was provide to help pull us along.
The exit from this space was actually the best part, as we were now on top of the dome and looking out into the endless stretch of Rome. This was one of the most amazing views I have had, and I must have walked around the whole circular platform at least four times. We were given amazing views of the city in all directions, a perfect look into the Piazza on its main axis, and the best part was picking out monuments from all over: the Pill Bugs by Renzo, the Wedding Cake, the Pantheon, a soccer stadium, the Villa Borghese, the Castel Sant’Angelo, as well as a great view into the Vatican Grounds. We spent a good bit of time up here just taking it all in.
Once we reluctantly left this space we climbed back down more spiral, zigzag and angled stairs until we were released back onto the main part of the roof. We wandered through this landscape filled with various domes and more views out before coming to the back of the main statues sitting on the main façade. Sadly, the edge was too tall so we couldn’t look down into the space, but in general the area was pretty fantastic. After walking all the way back down we basically fell into the main space of St. Peter’s. The interior of the church is absolutely fantastic (claimed to be the biggest Catholic church in the world, but that cant be counting Hagia Sofia or Sagrada Familia) and the scale is awesome. There are beautiful colors everywhere, many statues tucked into many spaces all over the place, and the massive aisle and naves are subdivided into smaller spaces that are a welcome departure from the typical design. We walked around here and saw the amazing altar that glowed with such power that it was still bright from the complete other side of the space. The main dome was just as impressive from this vantage point, and the three converging arched spaces that met at it provided a pretty awesome space that was pretty new to me. Once we had taken in this space we walked through the crypt downstairs that held the tombs of many different Popes including St. Peter himself. There were also the ruins of the original columns from the first Basilica that sat here.
After a trip back topside to regroup, I stopped in the Sacristy for a moment to see the registry of the Popes before we left the Basilica to continue our day. On our way through the Piazza towards the museum we found an exhibit on the Beatification of Pope John Paul II, which was pretty fantastic. From there we walked around the outer walls of the Vatican (pretty dominating even in this city of huge walls and tight spaces) to the entry to the museum. We were worried about the line situation at first, but we had smooth sailing for nearly our entire time inside! Once we made it through security we came to a pretty great entry space with a massive escalator next to a very Guggenheim Museum-esque stairway underneath a great steel and glass roof. At the top we were given two paths to go to, so naturally we chose the one that led to the Sistine Chapel. But first we walked through a pretty amazing series of spaces. First up was a great exterior area with some awesome art scattered around. It was unbelievably hot here so we continued pretty quickly on into another awesome outdoor space brimming with various statues, many of which that were very famous such as Laocoon and His Sons. From here we entered a series of spaces filled with more fantastic sculpture. Unfortunately the tourists are funneled through this space so it became a giant conveyer belt ride sandwiched between lots of stinky people elbowing and stopping at the most inconvenient times to snap pictures.
We finally did make it through unscathed and continued around through another set of galleries. Just our luck, once we finished the last of these side galleries we somehow ended up back at the start of the cowherd labyrinth, so after another claustrophobic trek at glacial speeds we regrouped and continued up into the galleries. Sadly, writing, sketching and other observing our prohibited here so my recollection of the subsequent rooms is a jumbled mess of pottery, jewelry, statues, paintings, and any other kind of art you can think of. It was really quite overwhelming seeing all of this crammed into such a massive space (although the procession through it all was fantastic!), and the experience was similar to Sir John Soane’s house spread over a few hours and much greater distances. Sadly, one of the few things we came prepared to see, Bramante’s staircase, was closed off. Anyway, we continued through until we came to a series of rooms dedicated to Rafael, most importantly featuring the School of Athens piece. We have learned and discussed a great deal about this work, so finally seeing it in person was pretty amazing. However, this single piece was nothing compared to our next stop.
After a very disappointing walk through some “contemporary art” (its amazing how white walls and odd junk automatically constitutes art) we finally entered the Sistine Chapel. The main piece was the Last Judgment, which also happens to be one of my favorite pieces. Again, seeing this in person was very similar to the reaction to seeing a famous building in its context and outside of the flat and stagnant life of a photo. After staring at a wall for quite some time I decided to look up and marvel at the ceiling. Sadly, this part was slightly disappointing compared to the images I have studied: the light was very flat and the distance made the impeccable detail meaningless. However, it was still great to see the individual parts of the series, which we have seen so many times before. After some more observing of the infinite other works in this space, we left and made our way through even more rooms filled with paintings (one was painted on every surface but the floor!) and through an awesome exhibit of old architectural sculpture. I loved this exhibit because of the way the delicate (but clearly very heavy) marble was juxtaposed with the very sturdy and solid (but most likely light) steel frames that held them up. We wandered through this space for a bit before coming back to the point at which we had chosen our path (seemed like ages ago).
After a quick perusal in the gift shop we walked down a fantastic corridor overflowing with statues of all shapes, sizes, and subjects. After we finished here we returned to the entry space and took an amazing staircase down. The grand spiral actually started as a ramp and slowly transformed into stairs as it worked its way down. To top it off there was an amazing glass roof over this space, which made the light in the spiral pretty awesome. Finally we reemerged into the outside world and realized we had spent the past eight hours walking and that it was time to go to Italian. We took the Metro out to Piazza di Spagna and stopped for milkshakes at McDonalds before going to class. Today we learned about describing a journey, sang Se Fanno Pop again, and played charades with sentences we made.
Once class was over a few of us continued our mastery of public transportation by taking the subway to the train station and then taking that back home to Trastevere. After a quick stop in a fun little store filled with every random piece of junk you can imagine (I played with a YoYo for a while!) and some grocery shopping (a pack of meat-filled tortellini for a euro!), we returned home. For dinner I made those tortellini with the pseudo-vodka sauce and onions that I made last time, and it turned out even better this time! Following my dinner I worked on going through my pictures today (391 before editing) and doing this honker of a blog before heading to bed!
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