Built in a day

Got up early this morning to get some early morning shots of the Colosseo (read: before the place is crowded with tourists). It was a beautiful morning, as you can see. So nice to have it right across the street...which meant that "early" didn't have to be terribly early. Which is always a nice thing.

We then rode the Metro over toward Vatican City for our tour of the Vatican Museum. Boy was that overwhelming. Turns out that when each new Pope was chosen he would move into the Vatican with all of his own art that he'd commissioned and purchased over the years and remove all of the previous Pope's artwork. Where did all of that artwork go? To the old Vatican (now the Museum)...it wasn't being used. It was just a storage place. And with each successive Pope the collection got larger and larger and larger. And now it's a museum.

This is called the Pietà by Michaelangelo. It is, in fact, the only piece of his work that he actually signed. See the signature above. Turns out that some other sculptor was taking credit for this sculpture and Michaelangelo got all sorts of angry, grabbed his chisel and hammer and carved his name along the bodice of her dress. I think the guide said this was his first sculpture...not bad, eh?

This is one of the ceilings of one of the halls at Vatican Museum. That's just some of what I had to deal with...I mean, where do you look? There is so much to look AT. The guide told us that if we stood in front of each work of art for one minute it would take us 3 1/2 years to finish looking at all of the art in the Vatican Museum. And that doesn't include the art that is in the actual Vatican...he said the best stuff is there. The other interesting thing, I found, is that the statues and marble from the Forum and the Colosseo...that was taken from there anyway...can be found at the Vatican. Not sure if they (those at the Vatican) saw everyone taking the marble and decided to protect it from the thieves or just join in. I forget that the Catholic Church went through a very dark time. I remember learning it in school, but when I think of the Catholic Church now, I think of the good things and forget that Popes were at one time very greedy. Also, some of them had grandchildren. When our guide said: this is the whatever of Pope whatever who left it to his grandson. I had to ask: The Pope had a grandson? To which he replied: Many of them did, one even had a child with his own daughter and was quite proud of the fact. A cursory search of the Internet did not reveal the name of the Pope and I have since forgotten it. I'd chalk it up to an exaggeration of truth, because what I did find is that several Popes were fairly active, if you know what I mean.

All in all a pretty good day - even with the slight panic attack at the hordes of people at Vatican City.