When entering the Vatican museum most tourists have only the Sistine Chapel on their minds. But the museum is enormous and contains great art treasures, so one should take good time in the museum.

Here one can find:

Pinacoteca – The art gallery

Museo Etrusco – The Etruscan collection

Museo Egitto – The Egypt collection

Museo Sacro – The museum for early Christian objects

Museo Chiaramonti – The museum for Greek and Roman sculptures

Museo Pio Clementino – Greek Roman art

Mueso Pio Christiano – Early Christian sculptures

Mueso Gregoriano Profano – The Georgian museum for heathen art and early sculptures

The gallery for modern religious art

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana – The Vatican library

Map gallery

Weaving gallery

Le Stanze di Raffaello – The Raphael rooms

Capella Sistina – Sistine Chapel

Pay special notice to the final piece of tapestry on the left side in the weaving gallery. The images of the stairs and the table weaved in to the tapestry follow the spectator and turn as one walks past.

Here are also the Raphael rooms. The rooms were painted by Raphael ordered by the Pope Julius II. The first room was painted exclusively by Raphael himself, but the other rooms were painted more and more by his pupils. The last room was finished after Raphael died in accordance to his sketches. The perhaps most famous art piece made by Raphael can be found in the room called Stanza della Segnatura. It is the famous painting School of Athens.

The school of Athens is painted in the room where the Pope kept his philosophical litterature. That is why the painting represents many philosophers, such as Plato, Aristotle and Euclid. Here one can also find Socrates, Pythagoras and Diogenes. In order to honour people of his time Raphael gave the figures in his painting the look of his friends. He gave Euclid the look of Bramante. Plato is said to be an image of Leonardo da Vinci. Heraclitus from Efesos is in fact Michelangelo. Raphael himself stands in the right corner with white clothes.

The Sistine Chapel

To enter the Sistine Chapel is to step into another world. It is somewhat dark and the guards repeatedly ask the visitors to be silent. One is surrounded by marvellous paintings on the walls and in the ceiling. The tension is immence and one can understand what an enormous effort Michelangelo put into the painting spending so many years on his back up under the ceiling.

Since 1999 it is forbidden to take pictures of the ceiling. A Japaneese company restaured the paintings in the chapel and thus has the copyright of all photographs of the paintings in the Sistine Chapel for 20 years.

Michelangelo’s paintings in the roof represent:

The Separation of Light and Darkness

The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Earth

The Separation of Land and Water

The Creation of Adam

The Creation of Eve

The Temptation and Expulsion

The Sacrifice of Noah

The Great Flood

The Drunkenness of Noah

On the wall behind the high altar Michelangelo has painted The Final Judgement. This was really the last big piece Michelangelo made, he died just a few years after it was completed. The Last Judgemet was ordered by the Pope Paulus III and represents the horrors that will happen to sinners during their final day. Notice the man sitting and holding his skin in his hand; this is supposed to be a self portrait by Michelangelo.

After finishing the ceiling in the chapel, Michelangelo was criticized for having painted the people naked. It is said that Michelangelo has painted the man, who criticized him the most, as Hades in the bottom right corner of the painting The Last Judgement.

When a Pope dies and it is time to appoint a new Pope, the cardinals are locked in in the Sistine Chapel and stay separated from the rest of the world during the days it take them to appoint a new Pope. When they have agreed on a new Pope they lit a fire in a chimney and white smoke appears as a sign that a new Pope has been appointed.