Rachel's Adventures in Rome!: A Visit to the Vatican

This past weekend, I headed to the Vatican for the day. This is one of the things I have been most excited for since I knew I would be in Rome for the term. The first thing we did was get in line to see St. Peter's Basilica. We arrived only about twenty minutes after the basilica opened, but the line already snaked around the square. Luckily, it moved pretty quickly, and it gave us the opportunity to admire the square in all its glory. We discussed how crazy it must have been to stand in that very same square on the day that the new pope was announced. There was disagreement as to whether it would have been desirable to have been there. After making it through the security check point, and passing the clothing assessment (conservative dress only!), we headed into the largest basilica in the world. And large it was! It was crowded inside, but it was so big that we could move around somewhat freely. I wandered trying to take the all of the art on the ceilings, the walls, and the floors. Passing by a statue of Jesus, I watched as person after person brushed their hand over his foot. I found the space to be interesting for its architecture and art, but the crowds took away from the spirituality for me. But, there was a roped off space off to one side, where you could go for private prayer, and there was even someone in a confessional, so there was a quieter place for those who wanted time for private prayer. I think my favorite part of the visit to St. Peter's was walking back out of the church and looking out over the square. I imagined how it would look filled with crowds of people. As we left we also got our first look at the Swiss guards. I must say that, despite all of their training, they wear really silly outfits.

Next, we grabbed some gelato (coffee and caramel for me!), and then headed to the Vatican museums. The museums are massive, and they were packed to the gills with people. I made the mistake of heading off into the collections without a map, and was soon confused and lost. After about half an hour of wandering, I headed back to where I'd started to pick up a map. It turns out that the museums are sort of like a very long, one-directional, winding tube, sending people through the collections and culminating in the Sistine Chapel. There are a few other collections off to the sides, but for the most part, there is little flexibility in the route that you take. Map in hand, I headed off again. There was so much to see, and so little time, but I will mention a few highlights: There was a hallway lined on either side with hundreds of Roman statues and busts. The explanation of the hallway was interesting, because it said that the designer had purposefully not highlighted masterpieces so that they would be seen side-by-side with lesser known works. First grade Rachel jumped with joy when she saw the ancient Egyptian collection. One of our units in first grade was called "walk like an Egyptian," and we drew giant paper mummies and built sugar cube pyramids. In the collection, I saw not only a real mummy, but also beautiful jewelry, and animal carvings. Another of my favorite rooms was the map room. Despite having almost no sense of direction, I have always been fascinated with maps (maybe it's because they are the only thing that keeps me from getting totally lost). The map room was another long hallway lined with beautiful painted maps along the walls. Each map depicted an Italian city. My final stop before the Sistine chapel was in the modern art collection. Normally I wouldn't care much about modern art, but my family knows someone from Portland who has a piece hanging in the modern art collection. My rabbi's mother, Alice Lok Cahana, is a Holocaust survivor and is famous for her post-Holocaust art. Pope John Paul II wanted a piece for his collection to represent the Holocaust, and he chose one of hers. It is a powerful painting called "No Names." It is dark and depicts railroad tracks surrounded by many sets of numbers. It was amazing to see the work of someone I have met in such an important museum. At the end of it all, I finally made it into the Sistine Chapel! It was beautiful, but so so crowded. After waiting patiently, I finally got a place to sit on one of the benches around the edge of the chapel. This made it easier to look up at the art and take my time admiring each piece. Yet, all around me were other people as well as guards shushing people. Again, I appreciated the beautiful art, but I didn't feel like I was in a spiritual place at all, just an over-visited museum. After exiting the Sistine Chapel, there were a few more collections to see before exiting the museum. Upon reflection, I felt both amazement and disappointment. I was amazed and overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of things that I was seeing. From Carvaggio to Da Vinci, Raphael to Michelangelo, we saw it all! I also greatly appreciated that the Pope and the Vatican value art and the sharing of art. Not just religious art, but art of all varieties. I think this is extremely important, and it is amazing that the Vatican has made such art available to the public, and that they continue to collect and restore important artifacts. On the other hand, there was so much that it was hard to take everything in. We spent 2.5 hours going through the museums, and I didn't make it to all the collections. As I mentioned above, there is one route that culminates in the Sistine chapel which means that as you get closer the collections get more crowded and you get pushed along by the mass of people. I think that a better design for the museums would be to have several separate museums, more like the Smithsonian. Maybe one for ancient art, one for modern art, one for religious art, etc. That way you could enjoy this amazing art without feeling quite so much like you are on a roller coaster ride (aptly described this way by one of my friends). At least they should have a separate entrance for the Sistine Chapel so that people who were interested in just seeing the chapel didn't create crowds in the rest of the museum. Anyway, I am definitely not a museum designer, but those would be my suggestions. The one collection that I visited that was separate from the main route (religious art from the 12th-16th centuries) was much quieter and there was space to step away from a piece and appreciate it without having swarms of people step in front of you. In this collection, there were some beautiful tapestries that were at least 30x60 feet. I mean HUGE. As a weaver of much smaller and more basic things, I was shocked by the size and intricacy of these pieces.

After our trip to the museum, we walked to Trastevere, a neighborhood filled with restaurants, bars, bakeries, and shops, also on the Western side of the Tiber. My friend's dad was visiting so we went to her favorite restaurant and had an Italian-style 3 hour dinner. I ordered gnocchi, which I don't usually like, but these were quite tasty! All-in-all, it was a busy and exhausting day, but wonderfully so. Now that I know which collections I am most interested in, I hope to make it back to the Vatican museums for a more focused and contained visit.

Having now visited the Vatican, it is hard for me to believe that it is an autonomous political unit. I am still confused about the logistics of this status. It is hard to tell where Rome stops and the Vatican starts (I was expecting to go through a border checkpoint or something), so how do you know if someone has committed a crime in the Vatican or in Italy? What about taxes? Does the Vatican have any real citizens of its own? We were told to send postcards from the Vatican because it has its own mail system which is allegedly more efficient than Italy's, so clearly there is a separation, but it isn't one that is obvious to me. I had expected more of a clear delineation than I felt being there. One of the strange phenomenons of the world, I guess.