We took a tour of the Vatican when we were in Rome. To say it was amazing would be an understatement. The Vatican is the smallest State in the world and its official language is Latin. The Vatican is so full of history, art, and architecture that it is almost surreal.

We arrived outside of the Vatican and could see the large 30 feet high stone wall which surrounds the entire Vatican. The walls which were built-in the 15th and 16th century to protect the Vatican are quite impressive. There was a major lineup of people waiting to get into the Vatican.

The tour allowed us to by-pass the lineup and gain entry through a separate entrance. As we were walking to our entrance area we came across a very impressive gate in the Vatican wall made with stone and marble.

Once we entered the entrance area we went through a security check. There were a lot of people at the Vatican and it was very busy.

Once we were through security we began our tour at the “Cortile della pigna” outdoor garden area. There we learned from the tour guide, what the tour would contain including The Basilica of St. Peter, The Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel and finishing in the St Peter Square.  We will blog about each section in a separate blog entry because there is just so much to see and talk about.

The Vatican Museums

The Vatican museum is actually several museums in different buildings and they are very large. One of the first things we saw when entering the museum courtyard area was the large niche by Pirro Logori. The bronze pinecone on display was once in the Constantinian Basilica.

We were truly amazed when we went inside the Museum, the art and architecture were beautiful. Some of the stunning and incredible things we saw were statues from the first century. One, statue, in particular, was the “Belvedere Torso” which is a fragment of a statue made of marble. This torso was found in Rome in the 15th century and it has been in the Vatican since then.

There were numerous statues throughout the museum some dating back centuries. It was fascinating seeing the ancient statues from as far back as the first century.

We went to the Vatican gallery of maps and saw the stunning paintings on the ceiling and tapestries on the walls. The view was marvelous and almost took your breath away.  The Gallery of Maps contained paintings and tapestries. The long hall had numerous different artist over the centuries paint and do the art.

The ceiling was painted with different images and filled the entire ceiling area. Some of the images were beautiful.

The tapestries on the walls were of the different maps of the world at the time they were created. The tapestries were hand crafted and stitched with gold thread throughout the designs. We went to the upper floor of the Gregorian Etruscan museum and saw the “round room” which was designed by Simonetti. In the middle of the round room is a large monolithic porphyry basin which is more than 4 meters in diameter.

There is also the sarcophagus of St. Helen, the Emperor Constantine’s mother.

We walked throughout the museums for approximately  two hours exploring  the numerous museums. Ray took video and was trying to see it all.

Everywhere we looked there was gorgeous paintings and artwork. Even the floors were done in mosaics that displayed religious scenes.

The ceilings had different artwork and designs throughout the museums.

We saw so many different and amazing pieces of art, architecture, and religious artifacts that it was almost impossible to take it all in. We will do separate blogs for the Sistine Chapel and Basilica of St. Peter.

The only drawback was the fact that there were so many tourists that  the museum was very crowded. It made it difficult to see everything and the take your time to view the beautiful artwork.

Below are some of the pictures we took when in the museum sections of the Vatican.

“bene vale , et postea videbo vos” (Latin) for good bye and see you later