ITALY - Best of Europe 2014 - page 971

Self-Guided Tour: Start, as Western civilization did, in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Decorating the museum's courtyard are some of the best Greek and Roman statues in cap-
tivity, including the Laocoön group (first century B.C. , Hellenistic) and the Apollo Belvedere
(a second-century Roman copy of a Greek original). The centerpiece of the next hall is the
Belvedere Torso (just a 2,000-year-old torso, but one that had a great impact on the art
of Michelangelo). Finishing off the classical statuary are two fine fourth-century porphyry
sarcophagi. These royal purple tombs were made (though not used) for the Roman emper-
or Constantine's mother and daughter. They were Christians—and therefore outlaws—until
Constantine made Christianity legal in A.D. 312, and they became saints. Both sarcophagi
were quarried and worked in Egypt. The technique for working this extremely hard stone (a
special tempering of metal was required) was lost after this, and porphyry marble was not
chiseled again until Renaissance times in Florence.
After long halls of tapestries, old maps, broken penises, and fig leaves, you'll come to
what most people are looking for: the Raphael Rooms and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel.
After fancy rooms illustrating the “Immaculate Conception of Mary” (in the 19th cen-
tury, the Vatican codified this hard-to-sell doctrine, making it a formal part of the Catholic
faith) and the triumph of Constantine (with divine guidance, which led to his conversion to
Christianity), you enter rooms frescoed by Raphael and his assistants. The highlight is the
restored School of Athens . This is remarkable for its blatant pre-Christian classical orienta-
tion,especiallysinceitoriginallywallpaperedtheapartmentsofPopeJuliusII.Raphaelhon-
ors the great pre-Christian thinkers—Aristotle, Plato, and company—who are portrayed as
the leading artists of Raphael's day. There's Leonardo da Vinci, whom Raphael worshipped,
in the role of Plato. Michelangelo broods in the foreground, added later. When Raphael
snuck a peek at the Sistine Chapel, he decided that his arch-competitor was so good that he
had to put their personal differences aside and include him in this tribute to the artists of
his generation. Today's St. Peter's was under construction as Raphael was working. In the
School of Athens, he gives us a sneak preview of the unfinished church.
Vatican City
This tiny independent country of little more than 100 acres, contained entirely within
Rome, has its own postal system, armed guards, helipad, mini-train station, and radio
station (KPOP). It also has two huge sights: St. Peter's Basilica (with Michelangelo's
Pietà ) and the Vatican Museum (with the Sistine Chapel). Politically powerful, the
Vatican is the religious capital of 1.1 billion Roman Catholics. If you're not a Cathol-
ic, become one for your visit.