Compost Studios

We waited in line for an hour to get into the Vatican Museum. Before I researched Rome, I always thought the Sistine Chapel was part of St. Peter’s. It is actually part of the Vatican. The Vatican Museum is a section of the Vatican itself open to visitors. Research the museum before going into it because it is JAMMED with tourists even in the off season. Unlike a conventional museum where each item is marked and labeled, here the art is part of the buildings, integrated into the design and thus not “displayed” museum-style with descriptions under each piece.

The Vatican is as ornate and luxurious as any palace we’ve visited in Europe. Every square inch of every surface is embellished. Frescos. Paintings. Mosaics. Tapestries. Sculptures. Inlaid marble floors and walls. There’s no end to the rooms and corridors and plaques and inscriptions glorifying past popes.

There’s no denying the value of the art, the beauty of the spaces, the sheer volume of the collections, but it left a sour taste in my mouth. As a Christian, I found the display of wealth in the Pope’s headquarters and residence hard to swallow, a sad tribute to a Church that at times has seemed more in love with its power and status in the political arena than with its mission to share Christ’s message with the world. It seemed as if each pope tried to out do his successor with the art and decorations he commissioned. It's easier to accept such lavishness when it's part of a church building, accessible to all, designed to edify the faithful and presumably offered to God in worship.

How big is the portion of the Vatican open as a museum? Even if you don’t stop and look at anything, it will take you 20-30 minutes to walk to the main attraction, the Sistine Chapel.

The Sistine Chapel itself is not nearly as big or grand as I imagined it would be. It is a long rectangular room decorated with magnificent frescos by Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, and other greats of the Renaissance. It is dimly lit, and while the art is magnificent, it’s overwhelming in its scope and position. How long can you tilt your head back and look up at the ceiling? It's hard to get far enough way from the wall frescos to see them in context. Of course, the chapel, which was devoid of any furniture other than an altar table, was packed with people and no, you could not sit on the floor and look up. There was limited seating around the perimeter.

It was impossible to devote the time the frescoes deserved. We took them in in small doses and resigned ourselves to the reality that we missed as much as we saw.

Though visitors are expected to be silent in the chapel, there’s no sense of the sacred there. For me, it was like an art gallery devoted to a single theme, not like a place of worship. It was a feast for the eyes but it didn’t stir my soul, unlike many of the other churches we visited in Rome.

(Next: St. Peter's Basilica)

November 26, 2006