Chris & Kelly's Travel Adventures

Prior experience with the Uffizi museum in Florence taught Chris and me that to truly enjoy a major museum takes several 1/2 day visits.  So here we are back at The Vatican Museums...day 2. 

The lead photo was in the Greco-Roman art gallery.  The sculpture is called "Nile".  This refers to the rather large dude in the center as the Nile and the 16 cherubs frolicking with the animals around him represent the 16 cubits of annual flood height of the great river.  The sphinx he is leaning on represents the nation of Egypt.

The Egyptian rooms contained sarcophagi (some empty, some gruesomely not), very big statues, many stone tablets with hieroglyphics and glass cases filled with cat statues.

The Etruscan gallery consisted of many rooms of highly decorative vases, dishes, weaponry, jewelry, urns and stone sarcophagi...all housed under a brilliantly frescoed ceiling. 

The lapidary gallery was closed, but I was able to take a photograph of what must be thousands of examples of stone cutting dating hundreds of years BCE.

We took a lunch break outside and snapped some photos of the city of Rome, an inner courtyard in the museum, and a backdoor look at St. Peter's Basilica.

This is for Dan-

Our last visit of the day was to the Pinocoteca museum (paintings gallery).

In the first few rooms was a temporary exhibit tracing paintings that may have influenced Dante in his most famous works, "Inferno," "Purgatorio," and "Paradiso."

Chris thought of his brother and how much he would enjoy that.

The last room was a real doozy! 3 out of 4 walls were decorated with huge tapestries (including a copy of Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper).  The 4th wall was dedicated to Raphaello Sanzio.  The centerpiece being "The Transfiguration", very impressive. 

While our tour of Italy is not yet complete, we frequently discuss how much we have enjoyed sculpture by Michelangelo and Bernini equally.  We instantly recognize Raphaello paintings by his use of color, Caraveggio paintings by his use of light on faces, and we marvel at Leonarado's genius across disciplines. 

We do not recognize the artist who painted the picture in the last photo of today's blog.  Yet his use of illumination gives me pause.  At first glance, I think, "oh I love the use of candlelight," but I have to remind myself that this not a photograph or real candlelight but the stroke of a paintbrush, and I am all the more impressed.