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The Vatican
Rome's Vatican Museums encompass some of the greatest art in the world, from Roman and Egyptian antiquities to paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Rapahel, to the Sistine Chapel with its amazing ceiling frescoed by Michelangelo
The intertwined conch-shell staircase at the Vatican Museums is now, since they moved the entrance next-door, merely the exit to the museums. (Photo by Andreas Tille)
The Vatican harbors one of the world's greatest museum complexes, a series of some twelve collections and apartments whose highlights include Michelangelo's incomparable Sistine Chapel and the Raphael Rooms.
It's a good idea to get up extra early and be at the grand new monumental museum entrance (next door to the old one) before it opens—30 minutes before in summer—or be prepared to wait behind a dozen busloads of tourists. In fact, you should aim to do the Vatican Museums first, St. Peter's second, since they start shooing you out the museum doors at 3:30pm most days, 1:30pm many Saturdays (and, on the last Sunday of the month when it opens its doors for free, at 12:30pm).
Nano-Countries
Rome's greatest museum is technically not even in Italy. The Vatican is the world's second smallest sovereign state, a theocracy ruled by the pope with about 1,000 residents (some 550 of whom are Vatican citizens) living on 44 hectares of land. It's been that way ever since the 1929 Lateran Pact with Italy's government. But don't worry, your lire are still good here (though the efficient Vatican post office does use different stamps).
That begs the question: so which soverign state is smaller? Interestingly enough, the smallest independent state in the world also happens to be contained within Rome. The Order of the Knights of Malta, a charitable brotherhood and bona-fide vestige of the medieval Crusades, was booted off its namesake island in 1814 and now has its headquarters on Rome's Via dei Condotti, with other sovereign landholdings scattered across the city. Aside from running hospitals and other good works, the Knights are perhaps most famous in Rome for the view of St. Peter's dome through the keyhole of a gate to their property on the Aventine hill.
There are four color-coded itineraries you can follow, depending on your interests and amount of time (it would be impossible to try to see it all in one day). Plan "A" takes about 90 minutes—it shuttles you through the Raphael Rooms to the Sistine—plan "D" takes upwards of five hours and hits most of the highlights.
To any tour add 30–45 minutes for waiting in lines. My suggestion for the best short visit (2.5 hours total): Before you hop on the plan "A" route, head to the right when you get to the end of the awning-covered corridor to run quickly (20–30 minutes) through the Pinacoteca (picture gallery), which isn't included on the short itinerary but really should be.
Here are the Vatican's top sections (roughly in the order you're likely to visit them):
- Pinacoteca (Painting Gallery) - An all-star painting gallery with works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rapahel, Caravaggio, Giotto, Titian, Fra' Angelico, and many more.
- Stanze di Raffaello (Rapahel Rooms) - The former private papal apartments of Julius II were frescoed by Rpahael and his assistants with some of the Renaissance master's best works, including the renowned School of Athens.
- Sistine Chapel - The iconic fingers-almost-touching detail of Michelangelo's God creating Adam takes up merely a few square inches of ceiling in a chapel 132 feet long by 46 feet wide by 70 feet tall nearly every inch of which is swathed in some of the gratest frescoes of the Renaissance.
- The Pio-Clementine Museum - Some of the greatest stauary to have survived from Ancient Rome, including the Laocoön gruop and the Apollo Belvedere.
- The Rest - The Vatican is so vast, you're not even halfway through (though your eyeballs will probably be full by this point). Other collections range from Egyptian, Etruscan, and Ethnological Museums to the to the famed Vatican Library to collections of religious art both early (2nd and 3rd century) and modern (Matisse-designed papal vestments)—and we haven't even gotten to the Vatican Gardens yet. My advice: come back two or three times.
Viale Vaticano (on the north side of the Vatican City walls, between where Via Santamaura and the Via Tunisi staircase hit Viale Vaticano; about a 5–10 minute walk around the walls from St. Peter's).
Cipro is the closest Metro stop, though bus 49 stops right in front of the museum entrance (you can catch it from Piazza Cavour, or anywhere along Via Cescesnzio, which passes th very northern tip of the piazza around Castel Sant'Angelo)
tel. +39-06-6988-4947, www.vatican.va
Closed Sunday
(excpet the last Sun of each month, when it's free—and terribly crowded)
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This material was last updated January 2007. All information was accurate at the time.
Copyright © 1998-2008 by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved.
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