Friday, September 20, 2013

Up again and off to the Vatican, but this time we took a little time for a quick breakfast and coffee & shared a taxi with another couple.  Daniella from Livitaly Tours was waiting for us.  There were only two other people, a nice Australian couple, in our group.  Daniella rushed us across the street to the entrance so we would be only the 2^nd group in line to enter at 8:00, a half-hour earlier than anyone else.  While we were waiting to get in she told us about the Sistene Chapel because once we got in we were only allowed to talk for a few minutes, then had to be silent.  She let us stay in there to look for 15 minutes.  There were benches along the walls to sit so you could look up easily and only about 20 people in the room.  We got there before it got crowded.  When we went back through later, the room was PACKED and you could hardly move, let alone see the entire room!  What an amazing place!  Pictures just don’t do it justice.  I’ll have to go back and read The Agony and the Ecstasy now.  Daneilla proved to be an excellent guide, gliding us through the whole Vatican in 3 hours.  You could spend days looking at everything, but this was exhausting enough and my brain would have exploded if it had been longer.  Ginny said to be sure to see Laocoon by Michelangelo, which was beautiful but missing some parts.  Laocoon’s arm was found not many years ago (after a replacement arm had been put on centuries ago).  On investigation they realized that the found arm matched muscularly to this statue and that it was in a different pose from the replacement one.  I could have stood for a long time looking at Rafael’s School of Athens but we couldn't stay long.  Our guide told us this story:  the Pope insisted upon seeing what Michelangelo was doing in the Sistene (M. never let people see his work until it was finished), so begrudgingly M. took all the scaffolding down & the Pope invited Raphael, who was working in another room, the School of Athens room, to come view the chapel with him.  Raphael was so awed by M’s work, he started to change his style of painting to reflect the more muscular attributes of the body.  He paid further homage to M. by putting M.’s face on the old man in the middle of the School of Athens.  He put his own likeness on another figure, the only way he could actually sign the work, since artists were not allowed to sign their work.  The painting on the other side of the Raphael room, opposite the School of Athens, was started by Rafael (left side) and finished by his assistants, with a definite change in style from left to right.  That must have been the point at which Rafael saw the Sistene.  VERY cool.

We were, by then, ushered quickly past CROWDS of people, but we got to walk through the hall of maps, the corridors of papal gifts, incredible tapestries – so much – you could spend DAYS there!  There were marble tables there which were originally sample slabs used by the Romans to display the different kinds of marble that were available.  Gorgeous.  I think we have seen every kind of marble available at some point, and that’s A LOT of marble!

After floating through (literally) the contemporary gallery (Dali, Cezanne, Matisse, etc.), we walked next door to St. Peter’s Basilica.  UNBELIEVABLE.  That place is so big it’s inconceivable, even after seeing all the biggest cathedrals in Italy!  First you see the five bronze doors – one of which, the really old beautiful one, is opened only every 25 years.  I think it’s due to be opened in 2025.  You enter through a door made in the last ¼ century.  To the right directly is Michelangelo’s Pieta.  It was behind plexiglass and very hard to see because of all the crowds – jillions of people by that time.  Apparently some idiot in the 1970’s went up to it and started beating at it saying “get this out of here” and cracked two or three parts of the statue.  The story goes (according to our guide) that Michelangelo created the statue and no one would believe he did it – they were saying someone else did – all kinds of scandal – so he broke in one night with his chisel and wrote across it “made by M…..”.  Remember, artists weren't allowed to sign their names to anything.  In the middle of the Basilica was St. Peter’s tomb with the most beautiful (and contemporary-looking to me) bronze canopy over it made by Bernini with bronze stolen from the Pantheon.  ONLY the Pope and those permitted by the Pope can speak from that spot.  Daniella pointed out the windows of the Pope’s living quarters and the place where the smoke comes from when a new Pope is elected, also where the new Pope is introduced to the people.  The Pope speaks to the people every Sunday (all who gather in St. Peter’s Square – about 450,000 people and MANY chairs were set up too).
      

Tired!  This was a lot to take in for a relatively short period of time!   Back to the hotel to collapse for a while, then off to the Colosseum in the afternoon.  We're NOT walking this time!  The taxi dropped us off in front where there were again jillions of people.  We had reserved tickets (the hotel did it for us) so were got in pretty quickly.  The size was impressive but I have to say I’m glad I saw it, but that’s all I needed.  I don’t need to see or imagine what went on there.  The animals and people on elevators, killing, killing, killing.  The fact they could flood the arena for war games (imagine, WAR games -- better as video games!) and put a canopy over it is pretty incredible, but, now that I have seen it, that's all I need.  Don’t need a tour.  We were pretty tired.  We tried to find the entrance to the forum but to no avail.  We asked one of the “gladiators” (men in costume who wanted $ for a picture) who pointed us up the street but we couldn’t find an entrance and by now were Romaned out.  Maybe tomorrow. Time for dinner and wine.  Very early to bed.  We've decided to take it easy on our last day in Rome tomorrow.  We've seen SO much and need time to assimilate all of it.  Not possible!