Visiting the Vatican Museums

The Pinecone Courtyard, Vatican Museums

 

How to visit the ridiculously enormous Vatican Museums without having your head explode? It’s a question many serious tourists ask themselves. The first time I visited was about twenty years ago with three young children in tow. Four months in Europe with the kids had shown that adaptation was necessary in the great galleries – hitting the highlights was the order of the day. In the Vatican Museums, general consensus would have it that the ‘highlight’ is the Sistine Chapel.

Though it’s absurd to pick just one highlight out of SO much, that was the family choice back in 1993, and head for the Chapel we did. To get there, you pass along corridor after corridor stuffed with some of the greatest Ancient and Renaissance treasures, to say nothing of the Raphael Rooms (my favourites, if I really had to choose) and so you see a lot even if the Sistine Chapel is your supposed only goal (we did get there, though back in ’93 it was under restoration. Parts of the Ceiling were on view, and none of The Last Judgement).

As for the rest of the treasures, we didn’t really appreciate what we were looking at as we stumbled agog through the corridors. We came upon a guide giving an explanation to a group — we eavesdropped. We lingered. A guide was clearly the way to do it. So years later, in 2011 when I returned to the Vatican, senza bambinos and ready to learn, I hired a private guide. It was all I had hoped, and I learnt a lot, including to love the Raphael Rooms. 

A quiet corner of the Vatican Museums

We followed the ‘standard’ tour for a (short!) four hour tour – this is considered the minimum tour length, which gives you some idea of the size of the collection, if you’ve not been there yet. On this route, which most groups follow, you first look out over the Pinecone Courtyard and try to grasp the layout of the massive Renaissance buildings. Then you inspect the treasures of the Belvedere Courtyard – some of the most valuable ancient sculptures in the world, like the Belvedere Apollo and the Laocoön. Then you walk through rooms containing massive sarcophagi and baths of precious porphyry and other items from the time of the Roman Empire, followed by the Gallery of the Candelabra (full of statuary) and into the brilliantly decorated Hall of the Maps, where you can inspect the astonishing maps of the ancient world (as they knew it back in the day). Another long corridor holds huge tapestries, and then you move through some art-filled ante-rooms to the Raphael Rooms, the Borgia apartments, the Vatican’s modern art collection if you’re interested (a couple of gems), and then – ta dah! – the Sistine Chapel (which is always crowded to the gills). The last section of the tour takes in the interior of St Peter’s, an overwhelming experience just on its own. *whew*

I returned again to the Vatican Museum in 2012 when my brother was visiting Rome. For a first-time visitor it’s hard to argue that the Vatican Museums should be skipped – they shouldn’t. “Gird your loins,” I said, “and we’ll do it. I promise your head won’t explode.” But it almost did. Again we hired a private guide, and this time lucked out with Frank Dabell, a brilliant art historian with a real knack for explaining things. The tour was a resounding success. It did, however (of necessity, given the time constraints) follow the same route. 

I was left wondering what else there was. Answer: a LOT. I thought of visiting during the deep winter, when hopefully the crowds would be less – the Vatican Museums are famously crowded. I managed to get there in mid-March 2014 and it was still fairly over-run, though better than high summer (when the crowds are hell). I went without a guide this time, the only time constraint being closing time, and determined to explore ‘the lesser bits’ off the usual guided trail. My verdict? Wow. Just wow. 

I can give you only a few highlights, but if you try the same thing yourself, here are the things I liked best:

1. The Ethnological Museum and Egyptian Galleries. In these galleries there are some of the oldest prehistoric objects from around the world, precious objects from the mists of time (the only place I’ve seen similar is in Syria in the Damascus Museum, and we can only hope they’re surviving the the present turmoil).
   

   Neolithic statuette 5600 BC (!)

   

   Cuniform cylinder

   

   Neo-Assyrian relief from Niniveh

   

   From Niniveh, 648-631 BC
2. The Etruscan Museum – objects from pre-Roman Italy, room after room of them, documenting the civilisation that was lost when the Romans rose.
3. The Pinacoteca (Art Gallery). The Vatican owns some serious art. I mean really serious. There’s Giotto, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Raphael, Caravaggio… An unfinished Leonardo. 
   

   Giotto

   

   Raphael

   

   Lippi

   

   Leonardo

   

   Pinacoteca
4. Greek and Roman script fragments. Masses of them, mostly funerary, some Jewish. What a story they tell – and on the afternoon I was there I was the only person looking at them.
   

   

   

   

   
5. Roman portrait statuary. Yes, I know Rome is full to the brim with museum after museum of Roman statuary (the best amongst them: The Capitoline, The Altemps, Centrale Montemartini) But I can never resist a corridor full of portraits of them. You can imagine yourself walking in a busy forum, people watching.
   

   

   

   

   

There’s lots more, or course, including art in the Pinecone Courtyard, the Vatican Gardens which are open sometimes, a whole gallery of sarcophagi which was closed when I was there, lots more sculpture to explore in the Belvedere…so much art, so little time. Make sure your head doesn’t explode. 

OK, I think I’ve seen maybe half of this, max…*head explodes*

You can check out the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel on your way out — the tour route is one-way. That means you’ll also be able to head into St Peter’s Basilica if you like. I did, and wandered as stunned as usual in Michaelangelo’s cool, Renaissance architectural masterpiece, amongst Bernini’s writhing Baroque sculptures. Down near the baldachin over Saint Peter’s (supposed) grave, a service was in session. I left the tourist crowd and joined the congregation. No, Papa Francesco wasn’t in attendance (I believe Wednesdays are the days he waves from his office window), but a bevy of priests was in action, with incense and chanting. A service in St Peter’s! A fitting end to my further explorations of The Vatican.

But wait, there’s more – as I left, the Swiss Guard were doing their version of “the changing of the guard”. Ah, Roma.

And on and on it goes…