Reflections on the Eternal City: The Vatican Museum

I am not an art person but going to Rome and not seeing the Sistine Chapel would be like going to Edinburgh and skipping the Edinburgh Castle- ludicrous! We waited in line two and half hours to get in to the Vatican Museum and paid 26 euro. There were thousands of people there but once inside and free to move about it was surprisingly not that crowded. The Vatican Museum holds over 4 miles of art- mostly sculptures and frescoes but there are also some maps, tapestries, and artifacts. You begin by going through several rooms of sculptured marble statues. Now at first sight these are amazing and to think of how the artist just chiseled away and made such detailed human likeness is incredible. After the first few rooms of the marble though I had enough- where was the Sistine Chapel? On to more rooms with beautiful marble pillars and floors and breathtaking ceilings and more sculptures. Then onto rooms with maps and tapestries. Most of the art is dimly lit to protect it so it is sometimes hard to see and even harder to photograph. All beautiful but where was the Sistine Chapel? I had seen many signs for it and kept entering one long room after another with increasing amounts of beautiful frescoes depicting Bible stories and Bible people. I also saw the "School of Athens" which is a famous fresco by Raphael that I had read about from Schaeffer. I was quite excited to recognize a piece of art. I didn't care that much for the marble but the frescoes I really liked. It was so fun to guess which Bible stories or people the frescoes were portraying. I really like one that depicted the Apostle Peter being liberated from prison and another that showed a marble statue of a man (possibly the David?) broken on the floor before Christ on the cross (notice these in the slide show). In the course of seeing many beautiful pieces of art you will also see a lot of Mary and the popes. Much of the art is on the ceiling and it was not long that I became dizzy from looking up so much. They should think about getting some mats for people to lie down on to look at the ceilings! Anyway after 4 miles, some bad modern religious art, and a hundred signs showing the way to the Sistine chapel I finally came to it. Let me tell you it does not disappoint. They do not allow photography in there and photos do not do it justice so I suggest you go to Rome to see it for yourself. Of course my favorite part of the Chapel is where God is reaching out to Adam. This is in the very center of the ceiling and can be easy to miss because there are so many scenes on the ceiling and walls you barely know where to begin. After seeing just the two hands in so many pictures I was stunned to see the whole scene which is so beautiful. Adam looks like he is just hanging out but God looks like he is really going out of his way, condescending, to reach Adam. A beautiful picture of the reality.