Live by the Sun - Love by the Moon: DAY 49: – Rome: 3rd Day

May 7 - Michelangelo - 1508-1512 Painting the Sistine Chapel

How do you think he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

___ Michelangelo painted the ceiling standing up
___ Michelangelo painted the ceiling laying down on his back

Email or facebook shari with the correct answer. If you are the first one to respond, you will get a prize!

(sharichc@yahoo.com) (shari olson couillard)
If you want to see more pictures and details of Michelangelo's magnificent work, go to this website.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Chapel_ceiling

We got to the Vatican Museum about 30 minutes before they opened, but we still had an hour to wait in line. It was definitely worth the 3 days of waiting. Someday, I would love to go through, however, with no one in there but me. mmm....don't think that would ever happen. :)

We got inside the Sistine Chapel about half-way through the tour of the Museum. As soon as we went in, I felt this amazing "awe" that can't be put into words. There was beautiful latin liturgical music playing which added to the beauty of the artwork.


Michelangelo shows God reaching out to touch Adam, who is (quote by Vaspari) "a figure whose beauty, pose and contours are such that it seems to have been fashioned that very moment by the first and supreme creator rather than by the drawing and brush of a mortal man^"From beneath the sheltering arm of God, Eve looks out, a little apprehensively.

We were amazed at how well preserved the frescoes are. The Vatican Museum is a "must see". The Museum originated as a group of sculptures collected by Pope Julius II (1503-1513) and placed in what today is the “Cortile Ottagono” within the museum complex. The popes were among the first sovereigns who opened the art collections of their palaces to the public thus promoting knowledge of art history and culture for others. Later, Pius VII (1800-1823) expanded the collections of Classical Antiquities, to which he added the Chiaromonti Museum and the “Braccio Nuovo” gallery. Gregory XVI (1831-1846) founded the Etruscan Museum (1837) with archaeological finds discovered during excavations carried out from 1828 onwards in southern Etruria. Later, he established theEgyptian Museum (1839), which houses ancient artifacts from explorations in Egypt, together with other pieces already conserved in the Vatican and in the Museo Capitolino, and the Lateran Profane Museum (1844), with statues, sculptures and mosaics of the Roman era, which could not be adequately placed in the Vatican Palace. The Lateran Profane Museum was expanded in 1854 under Pius IX (1846-1878) with the addition of the Pio Christian Museum. This museum is comprised of ancient sculptures and inscriptions with ancient Christian content. In 1910, under Saint Pius X (1903-1914), the Hebrew Lapidary was established. This section of the museum contains 137 inscriptions from ancient Hebrew cemeteries in Rome. These last collections (Gregorian Profane Museum, Pio Christian Museum and the Hebrew Lapidary) were transferred, under the pontificate of Pope John XXIII (1958-1963), from the Lateran Palace to their present building within the Vatican and inaugurated in 1970.

The Museums also include the Gallery of Tapestries, a collection of various 15th and 17th century tapestries; the Gallery of Maps, decorated under the pontificate of Gregory XIII (1572-1585) and restored by Urban VIII (1623-1644); the Sobieski Room and the Room of the Immaculate Conception; the Raphael Stanze and the Loggia, which were decorated by order of Julius II and Leo X (1513-1521); the Chapel of Nicholas V (1447-1455), painted by Fra Angelico; the Sistine Chapel, which takes the name of its founder, Pope Sixtus IV; the Borgia Apartment, where Pope Alexander VI lived until his death (1492-1503).

There are several other areas in the Museum, too numerous to mentiom. suffice it to say, we were in the Museum for several hours and still could not take it all in. Enjoy the next photos that we took that were some of our favorites. The Vatican Museum will always be one of the highlights of our visit to Rome.