We had made arrangements before we left home for a tour of the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. Various tour companies have an agreement with the Vatican Museum to allow early entry and to avoid the long lines for tickets. As a money-making scheme for the Holy See this is probably not as bad as John Tetzel’s indulgences, and we decided it was worth the extra money to avoid so many people. You may think think, with some justification, that there is something odd about going to a spiritual place with something less than complete affection for the rest of humanity, but as I recall the the evangelists’ accounts, Jesus also fled the crowds at times, and that seems like precedent enough.
We found our tour group, curiously named “Dark Rome”, and after giving us pink sticker and a headset with more static than an AM radio station in Big Sur, we were escorted through the doors and into the Vatican Museum complex. Our guide was a young woman named Alexa who seemed to have a great deal of affection for both Renaissance art and her bottle of henna. She assured us repeatedly that she was a trained art historian. I have some doubts about that, but at least her English was quite good. She snapped a picture of John and me as we were waiting.
We were led from there to the Belvedere Courtyard. Built by Innocent VIII, who other accomplishments included murdering the Waldensians and establishing the Spanish Inquisition, the Belvedere did allow the Holy Father to enjoy some cool breezes during the summer as he prepared, one hopes, to enjoy the heat of hell in the afterlife. It is dominated today by two bronze pieces. The first is a first century Roman pine cone.
The second is a modern sculpture by the Italian artist Arnaldo Pomodoro called Sphere within a Sphere. The piece is massive, yet can be pushed easily.
Alexa moved us rather quickly through some of the many galleries in the museum. We saw an strange statue of Aphrodite as a fertility deity: the appendages in the middle of her torso apparently represent bull testicles. Perhaps an odd piece for celibate men to collect….
We continued on to a hallway covered by tapestries. We were taken by the one showing Herod slaughtering the children. Perhaps an odd choice for two teachers to notice….
We strolled down the long gallery of maps with its representations of the different regions in the Italian peninsula. It is rather astonishing how accurate these early Renaissance cartographers were with only the most basic instruments. This is the map of Venice showing the Grand Canal and the Lido.
We continued from there to the Borgia Apartments. We sadly skipped, as most tours do, the frescoes of Pinturicchio, in a favor of a speedy trip through the Vatican’s insipid collection of modern religious art.
At least we spent a much longer time in the Raphael Rooms. We went through the Constantine Room fairly quickly. In addition to the iconic, if deeply depressing, picture of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, I observed the enormous depiction of the Donation of Constantine. It seemed strange that Julius and Rafael would depict this many decades after Lorenzo Valla had proved that the document, purporting to give the popes control over the western Rome Empire, was a complete fraud. We then looked at the Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, a story apparently dear to the heart of Pope Julius II as it seemed to suggest that God’s highest aim was to keep his church as affluent as possible. In modern times, I suspect that if this story were not part of the deuterocanonical literature it might be much more widely used as a basis for sermons on stewardship.
In the Room of the Signature, we spent a good deal of time discussing the iconic School of Athens painting.
Alexa pointed out how Rafael had included not only Michelangelo and Leonardo in the picture, but also included himself.
We took a more cursory glance at the Disputation of the Holy Sacrament on the opposite wall.
From here we continued on into the Sistine Chapel. Before entering the chapel visitors are admonished that they must dress appropriately and cannot take pictures because it is such as holy place. It did not feel that way at all to me. The guards constantly demand that the visitors keep moving and stop looking at the frescos, apparently desiring to push as many paying customers through the space in the available time. At the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe the faithful are placed on a conveyor belt so that they do not spend too much time looking at the holy cloth - just enough time to toss down some money in front of it. I was surprised that the Vatican had not adapted the same system to the room of the papal conclave. As I could not take a photograph, even without a flash, here is the famous ceiling courtesy of Google images.
From the chapel we were hustled over to the Basilica. When I was first there I remember being astonished by the sheer space inside the building. Perhaps it was because there were so many thousands in it yesterday it did not seem to large to me. All the familiar art was there, of course, such as Michelangelo’s Pieta
and Bernini’s iconic baldachin soaring above the high altar.
Despite my admiration for Pope Francis and for the intellectual power of the Roman Catholic tradition, I walked out of Saint Peter’s feeling cooler to the Catholic Church than ever. I am hardly the first to wonder how we came from Jesus’ declaration of “Blessed are you who are poor … Woe to you who are rich” to this staggering display of power and wealth. It is true that these art works are part of the heritage of human accomplishment and should be preserved. But is that really the mission of the church? Did Jesus commission the leading artists of his time to commemorate his deeds in frescos and statues? On the Mount of Olives, before his ascension, did the Savior command us to go through the world and collect art in the name of the holy Trinity? Anglicans often speak of converting to Roman Catholicism as "swimming the Tiber.” I found myself on its bank without the slightest desire to stick my foot in that metaphorical water.
After picking up a backpack at the coat check, John and I had to decide what to do with the rest of our day. We decided to do something that neither of us had done before and to explore that Trastevere district on the west bank of the Tiber. When we had last been in Rome some 20 years ago, this was still considered a bit of a slum and few tourists ever bothered to visit. Today, like San Telmo in Buenos Aires, it being transformed from a bohemian enclave into one of the most fashionable neighborhoods in the city. We took a cab from the Vatican City south, and of course as we arrived, so did the thunderstorm. We found a dry spot in a restaurant where we had a mediocre but inexpensive lunch. As we finished, the rain let up and we decided to explore. We had downloaded some audio tours of Rome before we left Los Angeles, so we decided to try to the tour of Trastevere.
We crossed the bridge to the east side of the river, not far from Palatine Hill. We looked at Rome’s Great Synagogue where John Paul II had made the first papal visit to a Jewish house of worship. It is only open for occasional guided tours, so we simply admired the outside.
We crossed over the small island in the river that marks the entrance to the Trastevere neighborhood. This, we learned from the audio tour, had once been the home to a temple to Asclepius, the Roman god of healing, and had been favored by Romans as an auspicious place for women to give birth. It now seemed like an auspicious place to buy gelato, but we decided to wait for later for that. One of the reasons for the recent popularity of the Trastevere neighborhood is that the Roman authorities had not thought the area important enough to warrant widening its streets. As a result, Trastevere is much easier to maneuver on foot, although pedestrians have to be careful of the Vespas as well as the cobblestones.
We stopped to book at the Church of Saint Cecilia, but it was closed. So we continued on, glancing through the windows of trendy new stores, to the Piazza Santa Maria, the central square of Trastevere. The church here is supposedly the first one in Christendom named after the mother of Jesus.
The interior is not that interesting apart from a Byzantine mosaic in the apse behind the high altar.
After looking in the church we stopped on the square and had some espresso and gelato. The scene could not have been more Italian. The storm had passed and the piazza was lit by the warm tones of the afternoon sun. People sat around the fountain in the central square. Some boys were kicking a soccer ball around. A man was playing an accordion while other man danced to the music. Bicycles loaded with groceries and Vespas with pairs of young lovers whizzed by. Had the whole scene been in a movie by Fellini I might have thought it contrived. But there we were, not only visiting Rome, but almost living in Roma.
We walked back through the narrow streets. There really was laundry hanging out to dry between the Renaissance tenements.
An occasional open door revealed a lovely interior courtyard.
As the siesta hours were over, we figured that the Church of Saint Cecilia might be open now, and so we went to look at it. Cecilia was supposedly a Roman noblewoman who became a Christian. She was betrothed to a Valerianus, a pagan man of an equally important family, and she confided in him on her wedding night that she wanted to remain a virgin. One might have thought that this would send him looking for a more available spouse, but supposedly he was so moved by her devotion that he became a Christian. The Roman authorities found out about this and promptly had him killed. According to legend, they found Cecilia harder to execute, first trying to suffocate her and then hitting her repeatedly with a sword. In later centuries Cecilia became the patron saint of musicians, though most people find the link between musicians and virginity somewhat tenuous. The church, supposedly built over the site of Cecilia’s house, was completely renovated in the eighteenth century and is not particularly interesting inside.
The most interesting part of the church is the preserved remains of the saint displayed under the high altar.
By this time both of us were tired and ready to return to Flaminio for a nap. But before we caught a cab back we had to catch another church. This one was on the right bank of the Tiber, opposite Trastevere. We noticed a long line there and realized that it was tourists who were waiting to get their picture taken with the same lion’s head made famous by Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.
We decided to skip it, but did go down into the crypt to look at the simple tomb of Pope Adrian.
We caught a ride with a particularly surly cabbie back to the Villa Riccio. John napped for a bit and I edited photos. In the evening we decided to go out for a little bite to eat in the neighborhood. Almost on cue, the thunderstorms returned. Despite getting a little wet, we had a good meal. A fine ending to an occasionally dry day!
