Getting Schooled in the Raphael Rooms & Sistine Chapel

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Did you catch that tongue-in-cheek reference in my blog title? 😄 If not, you’ll understand in just few moments.

It’s a Monday afternoon in June, the holiday weekend is over and one would think the city would feel less hectic but this is the Eternal City we are talking about so the hustle and bustle remains. This is my last day in Rome before heading south to Sorrento and the art nerd in me knows…

The Vatican Museums are the perfect way to say arrivedèrci to Roma.

Before meeting my tour group to get my skip=the=line ticket to the Vatican, I headed to Piazza del Popolo and to that Parfumerie so I could purchase the bottle I’d fallen in love with several days earlier. I also stopped at a street vendor and bought some inexpensive (and unbelievably comfortable) leather sandals. This style is all the rage in Rome and you can find a dopllgänger pair Amazon so you arrive in style.

Lastly.I visited OVS which is Rome’s answer to Gap/Old Navy only WAY better and they are only a half block or so from the Vatican entrance. I scored a dress on the cheap and let me just say this: I do NOT wear dresses. Pretty much EVER so you know it was a good store if I bought a dress and wore that baby everywhere for the remainder of the trip (simple, comfy and cool!).

From there I walked a half block and climbed the stairs to the tour meeting point. Eco Tours offers skip the line tickets and they are a fun group! They take you inside the museum and then turn you loose to tour at your own pace (you can of course book a guided tour if you prefer). I booked through Viator (Look for the Eco Tours selection). You can also find them on Tripadvisor.

Our guide was from Italy and his wife was from New York. He asked where I was from and I explained I live just outside of Yosemite.

“Ohhhh! Yogi Bear. yes?”

“Yes!” I replied while his American wife had no idea what we were talking about. She didn’t know who Yogi is which we thought was funny because she’s the American but somehow her Italian husband knew this particular character.

*********The Vatican takes security very seriously and since this is a religious site, dressing appropriately is absolutely required. You must cover your shoulders and knees. Wear a dress that falls below your knees and bring a scarf to cover your shoulders if needed. I did see a few ladies remove their scarf once inside and it irritated me. I understand wanting to look beautiful and perhaps your scarf doesn’t go with your outfit but I feel that we as travelers have a responsibility to respect the spaces that are not our own. Just wear the scarf, already!

Since my tour was in the afternoon (it was the only tour available), we had limited time before the Sistene Chapel would close (5:30). The Vatican Museum complex is rather large and can be confusing. You can buy a map upon entering but the line to do so was long and I decided to follow the signs and take a guess at which one would lead me to the Sistene Chapel. Luckily, I guessed correctly and my route was PERFECTO!

The Vatican Museums host 70,000 works of art ranging from Egyptian, Etruscan, Renaisssance and even contemporary pieces. There are 54 galleries and one could easily spend and entire day here.

The Gallery of Maps

One of the most stunning areas of the Vatican Museums! The sides of the room consist of frescos which are detailed maps of Italy and were painted before Italy actually existed as a country! The most incredible aspect of this room in my opinion, is the ceiling. It is so ornate that some visitors mistake it for the Sistine Chapel. This room is as long as a football field and it is truly spectacular. It was quite busy so it’s hard to photograph this room ( I’m talking hundreds of tourists…..if I were to catch Covid on this trip, this is where it would probably happen… along with the Sistine). I don’t know where the traffic was worse: here or the streets of Rome!

If you’d like to learn more about this room, visit this Vatican Galleries site It has some great information!

I emerged from this great hall more excited than before. If one room can be that exquisite and it isn’t even the main attraction, what would the Sistine be like!? From here I wend my way through the contemporary galleries.

Tucked away in a nondescript area (it would be easy to miss) is a glass case which houses Rauschenberg and Dali sketches of Dante’s Inferno and the Divine Comedy

As I meandered through the contemporary galleries I was pleasantly surprised to see a Francis Bacon, works by Dali and others. A tour guide whizzed past me, speaking into his headset and I heard the word “Dali” (as I was standing in front of two of his works) while his group tried to keep up.

They didn’t even stop in the gallery to look!!!! 😱

This is exactly why I don’t do guided tours. I thought it was a travesty that these people only got to view this artwork as they were power-walking by.
The contemporary art collection at the Vatican is more extensive than I was aware of and you don’t want to miss the Matisse room!

The Raphael Rooms

The four rooms known as the Stanze of Raphael formed part of the apartment situated on the second floor of the Pontifical Palace that was chosen by Julius II della Rovere as his own residence and used also by his successors.

Hall of Constantine

Room of Heliodorus

Room of the Segnatura (the most famous)

Room of the Fire in the Borgo

Room of the Segnatura

Holy cannoli! If you have ever studied art history (even just the basics), you have likely heard of Raphael and his The School of Athens. He is a Renaissance master and when you view his work in person, you are able to see what Renaissance artists were studying at this time: perspective and mathematical processes to achieve perfection.

Despite the fact that there were many people sharing this room with me, I was entranced to such a degree that I felt alone in the room. Raphael’s skill with Trompe L’oeil is the very definition of excellence. Trompe-L’oeil means “to fool the eye”.. it is a technique in which objects are painted on a two-dimensional surface in such a way that they appear three-dimensional.

This room was originally a library for the Pope and the imagery alludes to this function.The images are meant to represent the three greatest categories of the human spirit: Truth, Good and Beauty. The frescoes of the ceiling are connected with the scenes below them.

For an in-depth description of this room, visit the Vatican Museum website.

One should take their time when visiting the Raphael Rooms because the level of skill in his works is not something to merely glance at. While it is difficult to get perfect pictures (the paintings go all the way up the wall so you aren’t at eye level with many of them), I did my best to capture some of the imagery that I had previously only seen in textbooks.

I’ve always appreciated The School of Athens but being there in person…… I felt parts of my brain leaking out, a side effect from the mind-blowing, overwhelmingly awesome floor to ceiling imagery.

The School of Athens represents all the greatest mathematicians, philosophers and scientists from classical antiquity gathered together sharing their ideas and learning from each other.The composition is packed with figures such as Plato and Aristotle and every inch of this image is magnificent.

The ceiling is divided into four sections dedicated to each of the faculties of the spirit, represented with female allegories: Philosophy, Theology, Poetry and Justice.

Every square inch of these rooms contain something to gawk at. I particularly liked the ceiling in the Heliodorus Room. four episodes of the Old Testament: Noah leaving the ark , The sacrifice of Isaac , Moses before the burning bush , and Jacob's dream.

Here is a 16ft scene of The Meeting of Leo the Great and Attila which depicts the meeting of Pope Leo 1 and Attila the Hun in 452 in northern Italy.

Needless to say, I spent loads of time in this section of the museum!

The Sistine Chapel

You’ve seen it in books, you’ve heard whispers about how incredible it is but absolutely NOTHING can prepare you for entering the chapel. Pictures in books make it look so small and absolutely do not translate this space beyond maybe .5% of how truly bonkers it is.

“Until you have seen the Sistine Chapel, you can have no adequate conception of what man is capable of accomplishing. At long last the alpha and omega of all things known to us – the human figure – has come to grips with me and I with it.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey, 1787.

I do not have any photos of my own to share because photographing The Chapel is strictly prohibited. You will have to rely on my description (and a few approved photos pilfered from the internet).

I want to set this scene up for you so that you might get past that.5% and maybe get to 10% of what it’s like to be there……

The crowds are herded in like cattle… we are just outside the entryway and the look on the faces of visitors ranges from excitement, reverance and the occasional weary look of those who have seen enough before even reaching this point.

I am in the “excitement” group. We move from the well lit hallway and into the dimly lit chapel. The room is cavernous and hundreds of onlookers are either sitting at the edges of the room or are standing but ALL are looking UP.

Walking into this room is like being sucker-punched…..and it feels as though you’ve been smacked by the hand of a genius. It’s a beat-down I would happily sign up for again and instead of leaving battered and bruised, one leaves inspired and all the better for it.

This is a chapel which means that for many, it is a site where visitors should speak in hushed tones and ABSOLUTELY NO PHOTOGRAPHS.

Why?

Flash photography damages artwork over time and this is one of the most revered works of art in the world which sees millions of visitors each year. Degradation occurs and restoration is not only incredibly difficult, there is also the risk of overly restoring the work to the point of ruin. Remember, these are frescos (paint on plaster) which means they are delicate. They are also 68 feet up in the air… again, difficult to clean and restore.

There are so many people in this room that the talking is not hushed and some a*%hole people try to sneak photographs with their phones. There are a few museum guards in this room and one stands in front of a microphone. Every few minutes he says’ Absolutely no photos, silence!” and still the voices hum and still the jerks take pictures.

I choose to ignore all of this after my initial irritation because I have come to stand under the hand of God and to witness Michelangelo’s rendering of the Creation of Adam.

I stood there for so long that I started having neck pain! I held the back of my head to help support it because there was no way I was leaving yet. I looked over every section. Multiple times and each time, the Chapel revealed another secret. I realized that I am a terrible artist in comparison 🤣. Michelangelo’s understanding of perspective and the human form are at a level I will never accomplish. I didn’t want to leave. Ever.

It took Mikey 4 years to paint this chapel which I find astonishing! How someone could do allllllllll of this in 4 years is beyond belief.

Despite bneing in the midst of a very large crowd, the Chapel somehow has a way of muting the extraneous and welcoming you in.

I swear, I heard nothing of the hundreds of people in that room. It was as if I were the lone visitor. Maybe this is because I am a mom and moms have a superpower of tuning out noise or maybe it was that this place is so special that our brains become sharply in tune with what we are to witness that we are able to become a part of it. Either way, I was feelin’ it!

If I had to sum up the Chapel in one word it would be :INTENSE

Michelangelo painted the chapel from east to west which I believe to be intentional. The sun rises in the east (beginning) and sets in the west (end) so it makes sense that he chose these directions symbolically (the Ancient Egyptians did this as well with their burial sites).

There was a section that felt odd to me…. the last panel depicting God separating lightness from darkness. God’s neck and other aspects of His figure look kind of… funky or just not the same as all the other figures on this ceiling. I freely admit, I have not researched or brushed up on any of The Chapel’s facts in a very lonnnng time (since my college days) so I didn’t know what was off about it but I knew something strange was going on in that area.
Well, guess what!? It turns out that my instincts were correct. Later that evening I started looking for answers and I found this amazing article from Scientific American that you HAVE TO READ. It’s so interesting.

I’ll give you Cliff’s notes here though:

Michelangelo was a bit of a weirdo in his youth.

What I mean is that he had an incredibly inquisitive mind and at age 17, he would go dig up grave sites and study the anatomy of corpses. This is a bit gross BUT at the same time, those illegal studies eventually left him with first-hand knowledge of the human form and…. we get to have the Sistine Chapel as a result. Just sayin'.

“In 1990, physician Frank Meshberger published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association deciphering Michelangelo’s imagery with the stunning recognition that the depiction in God Creating Adam in the central panel on the ceiling was a perfect anatomical illustration of the human brain in cross section. Meshberger speculates that Michelangelo surrounded God with a shroud representing the human brain to suggest that God was endowing Adam not only with life, but also with supreme human intelligence.”- Scientific American

This isn’t the only section that contains secret anatomical studies though! The Separation of Light from Darkness reveals that leading up the center of God’s chest and forming his throat, the researchers have found a precise depiction of the human spinal cord and brain stem.

“Art critics and historians have long puzzled over the odd anatomical irregularities in Michelangelo’s depiction of God’s neck in this panel, and by the discordant lighting in the region. The figures in the fresco are illuminated diagonally from the lower left, but God’s neck, highlighted as if in a spotlight, is illuminated straight-on and slightly from the right. How does one reconcile such clumsiness by the world’s master of human anatomy and skilled portrayer of light with bungling the image of God above the altar? They argue that nowhere else in any of the other figures did Michelangelo foul up his anatomically correct rendering of the human neck.” Scientific American

Why hide these anatomical studies? Well, the Renaissance era was deeply rooted in the church/Catholicism and science wasn’t really a popular form of exploring so, one could perhaps get into a bit of trouble if they were eagerly diving into scientific study versus religious study.

Michelangelo was very devout but towards the end and after the completion of the Chapel, he started to become disillusioned with the Church and the amount of oppulance they enjoyed…. the corruption didn’t sit well with him and he began seeking Spiritualism which is the belief that the path to God isn’t exclusively through the church. Of course, this pissed off the Pope (Paul IV). The Pope thought that the Last Judgement section of the Chapel wall frescos was a direct criticism of the church because it suggested that Jesus and those around him could communicate with God directly (so you don’t need the church) and he suspended Mike’s pension.

Talk about a hostile work environment!

Rome is FULL of incredible things to see… all of them are grand examples of what we can accomplish.

My visit with Michelangelo and Raphael reminded me of why I became an artist. There is nothing else that we humans do that can be as moving as participation in the arts. I am so blessed to have gone and can now share the nuances and wonder of these magnificent works of art with my college students beyond the textbook (if only my institution would pay for trips like these….. educational research?? 🤓).

I leave Rome with a FULL heart and recognition that traveling is the thing that speaks to my soul like nothing else.

To learn more about the museums, please visit their wonderful website and watch the virtual tour, too!

Next week we head to Sorrento (getting there was a bit of a nightmare).

Thank you for going to the Vatican Museums with me. I hope you enjoyed your tour…..

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Ciao for now!

-Lindsey

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