The glories of the ancient world displayed in a lavish papal palace, decorated by the likes of Michelangelo and Raphael. That’s the winning formula for that treasure chest of sights called the Vatican Museums.
We took a guided tour (English Tour) that started with the ancient world, with rare statues of ancient Greece and Rome. There’s the dreamy Apollo Belvedere, and the over-the-top Laocoon – a man wrestling with reptiles. We saw how, after the fall of Rome, the Catholic Church carried the torch of civilization for a thousand years, collecting and preserving the ancient statues. We walked the hallways of the popes’ luxury palaces, fit for a Caesar, seeing glorious tapestries, painted ceilings, and priceless artifacts. And we saw how, in the Renaissance, the ancient world was reborn. The highlight here? – large-scale frescoes by Raphael, who many consider to be the greatest Renaissance painter.
The culmination of the visit is Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. But that will be a separate post. 🙂
Note before we begin… this may be the most crowded museum I have ever been in. So set your bar appropriately. I’ve borrowed pictures from online to supplement the pictures we took – since it was almost impossible to see everything with the mob of people. It’s a special place… but it is especially well loved… 🙁
The Pine Cone Courtyard
The Pine Cone Courtyard sums up the Vatican’s entire collection: Pine Cone – ancient, Bronze Sphere – modern. And the courtyard around it – Renaissance, designed by Bramante.
The pine cone is 2,000 years old. It originally stood near the Pantheon, to honor Isis, the Egyptian goddess of fertility. For the ancients, the perfect symbol of fertility was the pine cone, bursting with seeds. In Christian ties, this big bronze statue was moved to the entrance of the Old St. Peter’s Church. During the Renaissance, when popes reigned supreme, it was brought here, to decorate this courtyard in what was back then the Pope’s breezy summer palace on a hill.
The bronze ball in the center of the courtyard, by the Italian sculptor Pomodoro, arrived here in 1990. It symbolizes – well, there’s a lot of interpretations. It may represent the cosmos. Or, the earth surrounded by the heavens.
It’s big, it’s shiny, and its presence here completes the march through history: ancient, Christian, Renaissance, modern.
Apollo Belvedere
Apollo, the Greek god of the sun, is hunting. He’s been running through the woods, and now he spots his prey. Keeping an eye on the animal, he slows down and prepares to pull an arrow (now missing) into his also-missing bow. This Apollo is 2,000 years old. It’s done in the style of an even earlier statue, by the great Greek sculptor Praxiteles. Apollo embodies all that was good about classical-age Greece. It fully captures the beauty of the human form. You see, the optimistic Greeks conceived of their gods as perfect humans, and usually showed them buck naked. The anatomy is perfect, his pose is natural. Instead of standing at attention – face-forward with his arms at his sides, like earlier primitive statues – Apollo is on the move, coming gently to rest with his weight on one leg.
The Greeks loved balance. A well-rounded man was both a thinker and an athlete, a poet and a warrior. Apollo Belvedere is also a balance of opposites. He’s moving, but not out of control. He eyes his target, but has yet to attack. The smoothness of his muscles is balanced by the rough folds of his cloak. And he’s realistic, like a living breathing human being, but also idealized, with godlike features.
Gazing at Apollo and the other ancient statues in this courtyard, its easy to think about those classical Greeks. Five hundred years before Christ, the city of Athens had a population of only about 50,000. Yet, they practically invented what became Western Culture. Democracy, theater, economics, literature, art – they all flourished during the Greek “Golden Age.”
It set the tone for the rest of the West. When Greece was eventually conquered by Rome, Greek culture was appropriated by the Romans – in fact, this Apollo is a Roman copy of a Greek original. Greek culture surfaced again a thousand years later during the Renaissance, when this statue of Apollo was unearthed. It was considered the most perfect work of art in the world. The handsome face, eternal youth, and his body that seems to float just above the pedestal… it made Apollo Belvedere seem superhuman, divine, and godlike, even for devout Christians. It inspired Renaissance artists. In fact, when Michelangelo was painting the face of Jesus for his Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, his model was none other than the noble features of the Apollo Belvedere.
In the niche just to the right, a bearded old Roman river god lounges in the shade. This ancient statue also inspired Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. He used the river-god pose for the figure of Adam, reclining and reaching out to accept the spark of life from the finger of God.
Laocoon
This man’s agony captures the dramatic climax of the Trojan War. Laocoon, a priest of Troy, has tried to warn his people that the Trojan Horse sent by the Greeks is really a trick – a trick to get into the city. So the Greek gods send huge snakes to crush Laocoon and his two sons to death. The sculptor captures the scene at its most intense moment – Laocoon is struggling to survive, but he’s just now realizing that the snakes are too much for them. Look at his face – his agonized expression says it all: “I and my people are doomed.”
The figures were carved from four blocks of marble pieced together seamlessly. The poses are as twisted as possible, accentuating every rippling muscle and bulging vein. Follow the line of motion. It starts with Laocoon’s left foot… then up his leg… running diagonally through his body, and out his right arm. It’s a dramatic scene, rippling with motion and emotion.
Laocoon was sculpted four centuries after the Golden Age. Mentally compare these figures with Apollo Belvedere. Where Apollo is serene, graceful, and godlike, Laocoon is powerful, emotional, and gritty. Where Apollo is a perfect balance between stillness and motion, this is textbook Hellenism… unbridled motion.
Laocoon was one of the most famous statues in the ancient world. But after the fall of Rome, the statue was lost for a thousand years. Then, in 1506, the statue was unexpectedly unearthed – right across town near the Colosseum. It was cleaned off and paraded through the streets before an awestruck populace.
One of the first to lay eyes on Laocoon was the young Michelangelo – in fact, he was hired by the pope to help reassemble the fragments. Look at Laocoon’s right arm. In Michelangelo’s day, that arm was completely missing. Many thought that Laocoon originally had his arm extended straight out, holding the snakes off at arm’s length. But Michelangelo thought the arm must have been bent at the elbow, because he had studied cadavers and knew how the muscles worked. Then in the early 1900s, archaeologists excavated the original elbow, and everyone realized Michelangelo had been right all along.
The discovery of Loacoon in 1506 had a considerable impact on art history. It inspired Michelangelo to amp up his figures with more motion and more emotion. Just two years later, he started work on the Sistine Chapel, and took the Renaissance to a whole new level.
The statue also inspired Renaissance popes, who were in the midst of building these palaces at the Vatican. They started collecting statues like Laocoon and the Roman sarcophagi. The Octagonal Courtyard was where popes would entertain VIPs by showing off their fine collection of artifacts. Laocoon was the first and the most prized piece of this collection. And so, in a sense, the Vatican Museums were born – right here.
The Belvedere Torso
This is all that remains of an ancient statue damaged by time. It shows a powerful man seated on an animal skin – maybe it’s Hercules with his lion skin, or a cyclops, no one’s quite sure. Look closer at the base. We can see that it’s signed by a sculptor named Apollonius, from the 1st century BC. Scholars think Apollonius may have actually been copying an older statue, so it’s clear this subject was popular in the ancient world. Michelangelo loved this old rock. He instantly recognized that the sculptor was really good. Michelangelo was the best sculptor of his day, so the ancients were his only peers – and his rivals. He’d caress this statue lovingly and tell people, “I am the pupil of the Torso.” To him, it contained all the elements of classical beauty.
It’s not beautiful, like Apollo Belvedere. But Michelangelo was an ugly man himself. He was looking for a new kind of beauty – not the beauty of idealized gods, but the inner beauty of every person. This Torso, with its knotted lumps of muscle, has brute power and a distinct personality. And his slightly-turned pose captivated Michelangelo In fact, he used it for the torso of Jesus in the Last Judgement.
So the Sistine Chapel has Jesus with the body of the Torso and the face of Apollo. And his Adam is a reclining river god.
Michelangelo was in awe of these ancient sculptors. Now all I know about sculpting is making a snowman But when you stand face-to-face with a hunk of rock like this, it makes you appreciate the sheer physical labor it takes to chip a figure out of solid marble. It takes great strength but, also, a great touch.
The Round Room
The room is modeled on the Pantheon, with its coffered dome. Around the room are artifacts from ancient Rome. As one circles the room, you get a sense for the Roman flair for over-the-top grandeur. Romans took Greek ideas and made them bigger.
Case in point, the big bronze statue of Hercules – a Greek hero blown up to Roman proportions. This once stood at the ancient Theatre of Pompey, by the modern-day Campo de’ Fiori.
The mosaic floor we’re walking over is 1700 years old. Its battle scenes once decorated the bottom of a pool in a public bath.
But nothing says Roman grandeur like the enormous purple basin that dominates the room. It’s over 15 feet across and was carved from a single block of stone. This Roman basin decorated Emperor Nero’s Golden House. It’s unclear whether it was mere decoration, or used as a cistern, or as a hot tub.
The thing is so big that when it was moved to the Vatican in the 18th century, this room had to be built around it. The purple stone is called porphyry, and it’s extremely valuable. This particular variety is called “imperial” porphyry, because of its deep purple color. In ancient times, purple was the color of royalty. Upper-class Romans wore purple robes made from an incredibly expensive dye. For important monuments, their first choice was purple stone. While red-tinted porphyry can be found all over, purple imperial porphyry comes only from a single source – a mountain in Egypt. Roman emperors claimed it for themselves, quarried it, and laboriously shipped the precious stone across the Mediterranean. In fact, any purple porphyry you see anywhere in Europe came from that single mountain in Egypt. Now that source in Egypt has been quarried out, making this previous purple porphyry even more rare.
Sarcophagi
Imperial porphyry was used for the coffins of the imperial family. These two large sarcophagi were made (though not used) in the 4th century for two very important people: the mother and the daughter of the great Roman emperor Constantine. Helena’s coffin depicts a battle. Roman soldiers gallop proudly across the coffin. They trample barbarians beneath their hooves. On the daughters sarcophagus, it’s decorated with traditional motifs of the pagan world. There’s little winged cupids harvesting grapes for a pagan Bacchanale. But there’s also symbolism of a brand new sort – Christian. One can see the lamb of god and peacocks, symbols of eternal life. These sarcophagi stand on the cusp between pagan Rome and Christian Rome. Helena and Constanza were two of the first openly-Christian nobles in Rome. In the year 312, they were outlaws. Then in the next year, Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal, and they eventually became saints.
Get close to these pictures and study the fine detail work – the intricate garlands, the twisting vines. Porphyry is extremely hard, so carving it was a challenge. It required special tools. These tools required a special tempering process to make the metal strong enough. This high-tech knowledge was lost as Rome declined, and porphyry was not chiseled again for a thousand years.
Gallery of the Candelabra: Classical Sculpture
This woman is certainly strange. Her dress is covered in strange orbs:
This was the ancient Roman goddess, Artemis. Farmers prayed to her as the goddess of fertility. That’s why she’s covered with all these stylized breasts, to show her as a giver of life and nourishment.
There’s another symbol of plenty directly across from Artemis. This is the statue of Diana. Here, the virgin goddess is off hunting. While Roman farmers prayed to Artemis, hunters would pray and give offerings to Diana to help them find food.
One thing to remember when seeing statues like these – back in ancient times, many of them would have been painted. They might have black hair, rosy cheeks, flesh-colored flesh, and some even had inlaid glass eyes to make them come to life. But time and weather have eroded those once vibrant colors.
And yes, fig leaves. 🙂 Fig leaves were added later, mostly from the years 1550 to 1800, when the Church decided that certain parts of the human anatomy were obscene. Perhaps they associated nudity with the outbreak of Renaissance humanism that threatened their power in Europe. Whatever the case, they covered these classical crotches with plaster fig leaves – like Adam and Eve used when the concept of “privates” were invented.
Gallery of Tapestries
These tapestries depict scenes from the life of Christ. The first one is Baby Jesus, born in a manger. Then we see him being adored. The Presentation in the Temple, and so on. The most dramatic tapestry is the episode when all the baby boys were slaughtered by King Herod to prevent the rise of the messiah.
These tapestries were created by students of the undisputed master of tapestries, Raphael. First, they painted the scene on paper – full size and full color. These so-called cartoons were then sent to the famous weaving factories in Brussels. There they were cut up into manageable strips, and placed on the looms.
The Vatican tapestries are remarkable for their lifelike realism – almost like oil paintings. One can notice tiny details and subtle changes in color. In the weaving process, the vertical threads are a neutral color. It’s the horizontal threads that create the design. Imagine, the equivalent of each brushstroke had to be reproduced by thousands of short pieces of colored threat woven horizontally into exactly the right spot.
The Resurrection Tapestry above shows Jesus striding out the doorway of the tomb. It’s curiously interactive… as you walk side to side it seems that Jesus’ eyes follow you. His eyes, feet, knee, and even the stone slab seem to follow you as you walk by. The tapestry next to it – the Supper at Emmaus (with Jesus sitting at a table) seems equally curious about where you’re going.
If you look up, you see that the ceiling is covered with beautiful sculpted reliefs – cameo-like scenes carved into the frames and medallions of the stucco. Incredible workmanship. Now, realize that, in fact, these are not reliefs at all – they’re painted, on a flat surface! Popes loved illusions like these, to entertain their guests. For the artists who made them, this was proof that they’d mastered the challenge of 3-D realism.
The Map Gallery
The hall is a good place to fully appreciate the splendor of this papal palace.
The forty maps on the walls show the regions of Italy as they were in the 1500s. Popes could take visitors on a virtual tour of Italy, from south to north: from the toe all the way to the Alps. East Italy is on the right wall, west is on the left. These maps actually functioned as the Vatican’s official maps, from 1582 (when they were painted) until the 19th century. Some even have a detail map of the region’s major city. Some appear to have royal proclamations that were almost thumbtacked on.
There is a neat little window here where you can catch a view outside – that’s the Vatican gardens. This is the best chance to see Vatican City without special permission. The tiny country of Vatican City was officially established as an independent nation in 1929. What you can see from here is pretty much the entire country – the gardens, the palaces we’re in, plus St. Peter’s Basilica. Vatican City has its own radio station – that’s the tower on the hill. Just in front of that radio tower is a building with three green shutters. When ex-pope Benedict XVI retired, he moved in here, enjoying an occassional stroll on the rooftop terrace.
Make sure to admire the colorful ceiling in here as well. It’s made of molded stucco (or plaster) that’s been painted. The scenes in the frames portray exciting moments in Church history. The events happened in the particular region of Italy that’s depicted on the wall below. The decoration is based on ancient designs: lots of ornate garlands and intertwined vines… cupids, scallop shells, Roman vases, winged nymphs. It’s the so-called “grotesque” style, named for the evacuated Roman grottoes they were discovered in.
This gallery still feels like what the Vatican Museums once were – a pope’s palace. Seeing themselves as heirs of imperial Rome, the popes felt that they deserved such luxury. They demanded frescoed walls, stuccoed ceilings, tapestries, and priceless statues. Ironically, it was this very insistence on luxury that contributed to their downfall. Extravagant spending like this inspired Martin Luther and the Protestants to demand reforms. After the Reformation, popes had to give up their temporal powers and focus more on spiritual leadership. Eventually, the popes made their palaces and collections available to the public, and around 1800, the first Vatican Museum opened its doors.
You will likely recognize the locations of some of the maps – even if you don’t read Italian. This is the map of Liguria. It shows the main city of Genoa. You can even make out the five little towns of the Cinque Terre, circa 1582. Note the sea chariot, captained by Neptune himself. He’s taking Cristopher Columbus from his hometown of Genoa to the New World.
Epic-Scale Paintings, on the way to the Raphael Rooms
The first huge painting is not by Raphael – he’s coming up – but it is impressive. It shows the chaotic scene when Vienna was saved from the Muslim Turks. It’s 1683, and the Ottoman armies have surrounded Vienna – you can see their tents on the left. On the right, in the distance are the church spires of Christian Vienna. Just when the city was about to fall, it was saved – by King Jan Sobieski, who rides in at the center. He brings peace to the city, and a rainbow breaks out through the clouds.
The second room commemorates the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. This is the idea that Mary herself was conceived free from original sin. The room’s decor hammers home the point. The elaborate bookcase in the center displays copies of the papal pronouncement that established the dogma. The room’s frescoes show scenes of Mary, and the history of the idea through ancient and medieval times.
The largest wall frescoe depicts the moment when the doctrine became official, in 1854. Church leaders and secular VIPs gather below, while a heavenly host watches from above. In the center, the pope rises to proclaim the new doctrine. Notice how his inspiration comes straight from heaven: from the upper left corner of the painting, a thin ray of light beams directly down onto the pope.
After walking on a walkway over a parking lot for some of the 4,000 people who commute to work here every day, we entered the living quarters of the great Renaissance popes – where they ate, slept, worked, and worshipped. In 1508, the great Pope Julius II – the same guy who hired Michelangelo for the Sistine Chapel – decided to redecorate his apartment. To paint it, he hired a relative unknown. the artist was only 25, with a thin resume, but be came with a reputation as a one-of-a-kind prodigy. It was Raphael Sanzio, from Urbino. Unlike the moody Michelangelo, Raphael was easy-going and graceful – with just the kind of style to brighten the pope’s apartments.
The Constantine Room
This is the first of four rooms decorated by Raphael. In this first room – Raphael didn’t do the painting – his students did. But it is his design. Raphael wanted his frescoes to reflect the spirit of the Renaissance – how the classical world and Christian world complemented each other perfectly. Fittingly, this first room shows the pivotal moment when the baton was passed from pagan Rome to a rising new cult from the East – Christianity. The story unfolds in four scenes from the life of the first Christian Emperor, Constantine.
It’s October 27, in the year 312, on the eve of a big battle. We find General Constantine – he’s the guy in gold, with the crown. He’s preparing his troops for a coup d’etat against the pagan emperor. Suddenly, he looks up and sees something strange. It’s a cross – the symbol of Christianity – appearing in the sky. The vision came with a banner proclaiming – “With this sign, you shall conquer.”
The largest painting shows the next day, and Constantine’s troops rage into battle. They carry their Roman eagle banners, but now they’re topped with the Christian cross. There’s Constantine in the center, slashing through the enemy. Notice the confident smile on his face. He’s sure of victory, because overhead, God’s warrior angels have his back.
On this wall, Constantine humbly disrobes and kneels before the pope. He’s become the new emperor by the grace of the Christian God, so he’s ready to be baptized a Christian. Historians debate whether that actually happened, but there’s no dispute that, as emperor, Constantine legalized the once-outlawed religion.
On the final wall, we see Constantine handing a document to the pope, giving him the keys to the city, as the two worked hand in hand. Constantine would build the first great Christian church in Rome, Old St. Peter’s. Soon, Christianity would be the official religion of the entire Roman empire, spreading all across Europe.
Looking at the ceiling, we see a classical statue knocked backward, crumbling before the overpowering force of the cross. Whoa! Christianity has triumphed over pagan Rome.
The Room of Helidorus
Remember these rooms were Pope Julius’s personal apartments – in this room, he welcomed visitors for private audiences. Opposite the windows, we find a portrait of Julius. It’s called the Mass at Bolsena. Julius is the grey-bearded man kneeling piously before the altar. Julius was the pope who began building the New St. Peter’s Basilica. Besides being the Church’s spiritual father, Julius was also the biological father of several illegitimate children. We can see his daughter Felice, who’s portrayed kneeling among the crowd on the left, with dark hair and dark clothes.
In the lower right of the painting, do you see the young man who’s looking directly out at us? That’s a self-portrait of Raphael. Raphael lived a charmed life. He was handsome and sophisticated, and soon became Julius’ favorite. Raphael painted masterpieces effortlessly. His many love affairs were legendary. In a different decade, he might have been thrown out of the Church as a great sinner. but his devil-may-care personality seemed to epitomize the bold spirit of the times.
In the painting that arches over the windows, we find the Liberation of Peter. The drama unfolds in three acts. In Act One, we see Peter, Jesus’ right-hand man. He’s the bearded guy, slumped over and chained to the wall. Then in the middle of the night, an angel appears to rescue him. It’s easy – the guards are asleep on their feet. In Act II, an angel leads him to safety, past the sleeping guards. Finally, in the final act, Peter is long gone, and the guards take hell from their captain.
Raphael makes this little play even more dramatic with his lighting design. He uses four different kinds of light. There’s the moonlit sky. The captain’s torch adds another set of light and shadows. There’s the brilliant radiance of the angel. And, there’s the natural light spilling through the museum’s window, dazzling the viewer. As we look at this painting, it’s clear how Raphael’s mastery of realism, rich colors, and sense of drama made him understandably famous.
The Room of the Segnatura, with the School of Athens
This room was the pope’s private study and library, so Raphael depicted scenes featuring knowledge and high-minded debate. The frescoes – in both style and subject matter – sum up the spirit of the Renaissance. Start with the School of Athens – a scene that celebrates the great thinkers of ancient Greece. Raphael imagines a mythical university, where scientists and philosophers from the ages are gathered together in a kind of rock and roll heaven.
In the center are Plato and Aristotle. Plato points up, indicating his philosophy that mathematics and pure ideas are the source of truth. Aristotle gestures down, showing his preference for hands-on study of the materials world. Their master, Socrates, stands midway to the left, in green. He’s debating the meaning of it all with his colleagues, ticking off arguments on his fingers. In the lower left, a man sits and writes in a textbook – that’s the mathematician Pythagoras.
In the lower right is a bald man bending over. This is Euclid, using a compass to demonstrate a geometrical formula.
There’s another way to look at this who’s who of great minds. You see, Raphael thought that Renaissance thinkers were as enlightened as the ancients. So he cast many of his contemporaries in the role of these enlightened people of the past. Take Plato, for example. With his long beard and receding hairline, he is clearly Leonardo da Vinci, the artist who most influenced the young Raphael. And Euclid – (again, he’s the bald guy in the lower right) – Euclid is the architect Donato Bramante, who was designing the famous church currently under construction: St. Peter’s Basilica. In fact, the entire scene is set amid the arches and pillars of Bramante’s work-in-progress – St. Peter’s. Then there’s Raphael himself. Find his self-portrait on the far right.
In fact, this entire scene is set amid the arches and pillars Bramante would have seen in the ancient ruins littering the city of Rome in his day – places like the Baths of Caracalla and the Basilica Maxentius. And these ruins likely inspired the design of Bramante’s work-in-progress – St. Peter’s.
Raphael is the young man wearing a black beret and peering out. He portrays himself as the incarnation of the great Apelles, who painted Alexander the Great. The message is clear: the enlightened ancient world had bee reborn in the Renaissance.
Taking in the entire scene, Raphael balances everything symmetrically. He places a couple dozen figures to the left, a couple dozen to the right, with Plato and Aristotle dead center. Now focus on the square floor tiles in the foreground. If you laid a ruler over them and extended the line upward, it would run right to the center of the picture.
Now put your ruler on the tops of the columns. Those lines all point down to the middle. Subconsciously, this creates the feeling of a world that’s geometrically perfect. All the so-called “lines of sight” draw our attention to Plato and Aristotle, ad to the small arch over their heads. It’s almost like a halo over these two secular saints who dedicated their lives to the divine pursuit of knowledge.
Maybe you are wondering who the guy sitting right up front and center, dressed in light purple and leaning on a block of marble? That’s the brooding Greek philosopher Heraclitus. He was a last-minute addition to the scene. You see, just as Raphael was wrapping up The School of Athens, another painter was at work down the hall in the Sistine Chapel. Raphael got a sneak-peak at that artist’s work. He was astonished. He returned to The School of Athens, scrapped off a section of fresco, re-plastered it, and added this final figure. It’s supposed to be Heraclitus, but everyone recognized him as none other than the great painter, sculptor, and poet – Michelangelo Duonarroti.
As if to underline the idea that ancient philosophy and Christian thinking could coexist, Raphael painted La Disputa directly facing The School of Athens. Christ and the saints float atop the clouds in heaven, overseeing a pantheon of great thinkers on earth. In the lower left, a guy in blue and gold looks out as if to say, “Hey, the pagans had their School of Athens, but we Christians have this – the School of Heaven.”
The crowd in the scene is discussing the nature of the Eucharist – the communion wafer. There it is, standing on the altar in the very center of the painting. In Christian thought, the communion wafer, miraculously becomes the body of Christ, bringing a little bit of heaven into the material world. So Raphael’s painting also connects heaven and earth. Follow the descending circles: First, there’s Jesus in a circular halo. Below him is a circle surrounding the dove of the Holy Spirit. This beams down toward the circular communion wafer on the altar. Balance and symmetry reign – saints on the left, saints to the right, three angles in the upper left, another trio in the upper right. Even the books littering the floor seem artfully arranged. Most of all, everything in the painting radiates outward from this powerful Communion wafer – uniting spirit and flesh, heaven and earth.
In these rooms, Raphael summed up the spirit of the Renaissance. He captures all that was good in the classical world and fuses it with Christian thought. The perfect symmetry echoes the geometrical order found in the world created by a perfect God. The paintings exude a spirit of learning, discovery, and the optimistic notion that man is a rational creature.
In a way, this is the feeling I take away from the entire Vatican Museums. By combining the classical and modern worlds, it’s a celebration of both the divine and the divine creations of man.