Vatican

Today was dedicated to the tour of the Vatican.  About 98% of the people who tour Italy, visit the Vatican-about 24,000 people a day during the summer months! Tourism surely is one of its main strengths.

We boarded the tour bus and in 15 minutes crossed the Tiber River and entered Vatican, a separate country!

Vatican has its own postal service, tax system, security and even a radio station. We’re told that the Vatican lost a lot of land when Italy invaded it and is now left with just this area. The country is small, but the state is very big- we’re told. We presume it refers to the influence of the church which is of course world wide.

There is a fortress all around it, a secret passage way for the pope to escape in case of an attack and even an intelligence agency for security. The best museums in the world are in the Vatican. There are separate sections for Greek and Egyptian collections. We spent a lot of time in the Greek section.

In the course of viewing the exhibits, the guide took pains to communicate a lot of interesting tidbits about Rome, its original inhabitants and the pope. This write-up is based on those points as well.

Who are the Romans?

Truscans were the original inhabitants of this area.  Now, that’s the anglicized name. In Spanish, for instance, even now, they are referred to “thruska” (‘u’ as in put). It seems they came from Asia Minor.

(An aside point: Need to check out Mahabharata. If memory serves me right, we have references to ‘turushka’. Were these the Tuscans/Trunscans? I always thought Turushka refers to people around Turkey and possibly Turkmenistan whom we call Turks. Now, that would be Asia Minor. Possibly, we are talking about the same people. A research topic.)

As in other places, Italy too seems to have had non-native population who occupied the land and later contributed to its history. But the migration from Asia Minor was in the Iron and Bronze Age going back to about 1500 BC. Now, all this is the guide’s pearls of wisdom. Don’t quote me on any of this. Like the Aryan invasion of India theory, I’m sure there are alternate views which go contrary to this.

 Greek influence on Romans:

As per the guide, the Romans borrowed a lot of ideas from the Greeks including their sculpture. Hence, at many places, it was pointed out that either a replica of the same work is in Greece or Greek artists specially made this for the Romans. Romans seem like the Americans of those days. They wanted to be the biggest and the best. The obelisks and granite bath tubs were transported right out of Egypt. The guide joked that if they pyramids could have been transported, it would have been right here in Rome!

Maps!

Before entering the Sistine chapel, we spent time on a corridor (on an upper floor) with hand-drawn maps.  The maps are essentially about Italy and its areas of influence. Drawn about 500 years ago, it is accurate and is easy on the eye (unlike modern maps) with some amount of perspective thrown in while delineating mountains and towns.

We learn that Italy essentially has the shape of the English letter T. The Alps form a barrier in the North and run East-West. The Apadian (spelling?)  mountains run North-South and Rome is on them. Rome is less than a 100 km from the Western Sea and about 120 odd km from the eastern Adriatic Sea and about 1000 km from the Southern ocean front at Sicily (Need to verify this last point, though the guide mentioned it. Is Italy so long in the North-South direction?). The River Tiber flows though Rome. Hence, the name “Rome” or “Roma”- A city served by river and seas.

The corridor is really long and has some of the most wonderful paintings on the ceiling as well.  Apart from the Sistine Chapel, this would rank as one of the best parts of the Vatican that we could see.

Sistine Chapel:

The Sistine Chapel is a massive hall with paintings everywhere.  It is a riot of colors; men and women strewn around in every possible posture and expression. It takes some effort to make sense out of it all.

 Paintings from the Old Testament are on one wall, from the New Testament occupy the other. The entire third wall comprises Michelangelo’s famous work- The Day of Judgement. The ceiling is covered with another of Michelangelo’s renowned work- Genesis. This is the broad division.

Michelangelo was about 33 when he painted the ceiling- Just a few years after he completed his monumental work David. Twenty-eight years later, at the age of 61, he was again called to paint the Day of Judgement. 

Genesis:

 Genesis, on the ceiling, has the work we’ve seen in a number of places- The Touch of God where we see Man created in the image of God, illustrated through the touch of the finger between God to the right and a reclining man (Adam?)  on the left. Adam and Eve figure in another panel. Beyond that, it is tough to decipher unless you’ve done some prior reading. Michelangelo ensures that it is a jaw-dropping experience! Definitely, we are awestruck at the brilliance of the work, but because it is so high, you have to crane your neck which causes your mouth to open and your jaw to drop automatically!

The position of this work on the ceiling makes it very tough to view it for a length of time without feeling a strain on the neck. We wonder how the artist actually painted it.

Day of Judgement:

This work occupies the entire wall. Jesus has a different get-up altogether. He appears as a muscular, young man with no features that we normally associate him with. The artist appears to have taken the liberty in coming up with this new portrayal. Other than him and Mary, the rest are human figures all over. We are told that Michelangelo painted the whole scene on paper on the ground in one year, traced the outlines out on the wall with this reference and completed the painting on the wall in another 3 years. The colors are rich- The blue in the background stands out as if painted yesterday. It is hard to believe that this work is 500 years old.

It was mentioned elsewhere (previous blog) that Michelangelo did not like painting. His passion for sculpture is seen in this painting. Each human figure is painted with chiseled features and with attention to human contours that sculpture especially demands.

The pope:

Once out of the Sistine Chapel, we spent some time admiring the layout of the courtyard, St Peter’s Church and the activities of the pope. The pope addresses a gathering every Wednesday (except summers) from a particular podium, he waves to the crowd through the second window from the right and he appears at a specific balcony once he is appointed as a pope. We also see the chimney through which black and white smoke emerge when the jury casts votes for electing a new pope. The consensus or the lack of it will be seen from the color of the smoke so that common people can watch the progress of this election.

These details might have excited a more devout person, but we register the facts well and move on. It is a great view as seen from St Peter’s Church- an obelisk at the center from Egypt, a circular structure with columns in the distance and a huge, open square. 

St Peter’s Church:

St Peter’s church is impressive. It has a huge dome and constructed in a way to rival the height of the nearby hill. The pillars on the outer façade are really huge. We observed uniformed Swiss guards in orange and violet manning the premises. 

Lost individual:

A parallel thread was running alongside this entire Vatican tour (like a confusing Mani Ratnam film plot). One of the members of the tour group couldn’t find her friend after entering the Vatican premises. Hence, the conversation had to move back and forth from Rome, its history and the Pope to this individual who had to be traced as well. There were descriptions on when this individual was last seen, whether she had gone back to the gate we started from etc. Also, the group had a contraption where by all members could hear the guide but not the other way. Hence, messages had to be sent from time to time to this lost individual (as though talking to an extra terrestrial life-form!) who could hear us (hopefully) but who had no way of replying! Given the fact that the guide was switching back and forth between English and Spanish as well, the concoction was truly an avial  (South Indian dish with every blessed vegetable thrown in) of sorts! More than that individual, it is we who were lost at times!