Sistine Chapel , St. Peter's and Florence

Yesterday, the eighth, we found our way very early to the Sistine chapel. By being in a group (and getting up at 5:30 a.m.)we got in at 8am, before the Vatican museum opened and before single ticket holders were able to enter. The tour of the Sistine chapel begins at the original door to the chapel, which is marked with statutes of Michaelangelo and Raphael as seen in the picture below. While Michaelangelo died in his 80's, Raphael played around a bit and died at 37. Our local guide, Stefano (you have to pass an extensive licensing exam to be a local tour guide) told us that he would prefer to be Raphael, whose statue looked happy! These marble statues are above the original doors, which are no longer used as the Vatican spent untold millions building a new entry-way to accommodate large numbers of visitors and groups.





While the Sistine Chapel was started by Pope Sixtus and completed by Pope Julius, who convinced Michaelangelo to complete the ceiling and then return to complete the far wall of the Chapel. The picture below is the crest of Pope Julius. All of the Popes started adopting new names when they became Pope, starting in the second century or so and then started adopted crests to use. Since they were all members of the Aristocracy, they were used to having them. Only the Pope is permitted to say mass in the Sistine Chapel and still does so occasionally.





To get to the Sistine Chapel you walk through corridors of incredibly beautiful statutes, long hallways with frescoes on the ceiling, and unbelievable tapestries made in Brussels, from sketches done by Italian artists. The largest tapestry in the world is in this corridor and some of these took up to 15 years to make. This is just one of the hallways:




All of these statues were originally nudes, but when a particularly conservative line of Popes came in they forced artists to attach plaster fig leaves in appropriate places. Shocking!
Inside the chapel(sorry we can't show you but no photos are allowed) are the incredible paintings of Michaelangelo -most of the ceiling and all of the far wall. Especially well- known is the section on the creation of Adam (yes there is one for Eve too), along with panels that depict stories from the old and new testaments. The entire back wall of the chapel is the story on the last days, showing heaven and hell. At the bottom right of the "End of Days" wall is the painting of Satan and Michelangelo must have had a sense of humor, because he painted in the face of Cardinal Biaggi, a Cardinal that he particularly disliked on the body of Satan! What I find particularly fascinating is that Michelangelo was not a painter, he was a sculptor,but when the Pope asked him to do this, he hired the best painters in Italy to teach him and when he was ready he sent them on their way and did the chapel. He did not lie down on scaffolding, but stood on scaffolding while painting, wearing a halo of candles at night so he could see to paint.

A mock op of this is shown in the new movie Angels and Demons - as this is the place where all popes are elected. The stove for burning the ballots is placed in the far right corner all the way in the back. There is also a door there into St Peter's Basicilia.
And in the middle of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is the famous creation of Adam panel by Michaelangelo


As you leave the chapel you can go directly into St Peter's Basilica – and upon entering the Basilica the first statue on the right is the Pieta – also created by Michaelangelo – who really only thought of himself as a sculptor – not really a painter. Pieta means “pity” - for the Christ with his mother holding him after his death. Michelangelo was only 25 when he sculpted this. What amazing talent. The Pieta is behind glass now ever since a mentally disturbed tourist managed to get to it with a hammer. The face of he virgin had to be restored, and now it's behind glass to be safe.




St Peter was the first Pope of the Catholic Church, and he is buried here three stories under this amazing canopy of gold.



Here is the original sculpture of St Peter done in the 13th century by di Cambio and touching his foot is considered good luck. We all did it!



Of course (like I already knew this) St Peter is really buried three stories below the basilica and the whole area must have continued access too air – or things would rot! This is one of the grills in the floor that allows the lower levels to have air exchange.



And finally standing back at the entrance of the Basilica, you can see how enormous it is, look at the people at the bottom of the picture. This Basilica is larger than any other Catholic church in the world and is designed in the shape of a cross, with this picture being taken along the longer bar of the cross.
There are markings in the tile of the floor to show you where other churches in the world fit in, and while St. Patrick's in New York is huge, there is no match for St. Peter's. There is no way to really describe the side chapels, the beauty of the mosaics and the frescoes. You just have to see it for yourself. We are not going to put in a picture of the mummified body of Pope Pius X....all I can say is, “What were they thinking?????”




Outside St Peters, we found the Swiss Guards. It seems there are 160 of them and they have been serving the Papacy for a very long time. The must be 18 to 25 to apply and one of their fore bearers must have been a Swiss Guard and they seem to look a lot alike and all are very handsome.



Off to Pisa and Florence

Bill liked Pisa more than I did because once you've seen the original city wall, the church and the leaning tower, that's all there is to see. It is a novelty, of course,but I am not sure it's worth a stop when you have to fight your way through a dozen African immigrants selling fake rolexes and Louis Vuitton bags! -



Off to Florence – We arrived fairly late in the evening and our hotel was outside the city center, so we didn't hit the downtown the first night.


We made it to Academy of fine arts with a local guide, Simone' to see Michelangelo's “David.” I have to say this is an amazing piece of sculpture and we were so glad we got to see it there. Apparently this chunk of marble stood around in the marble yard for 120 years before Michelangelo chose it. It had a flaw, but one that fitted perfectly into his vision. Our local guide, Simone, told us that when the sculpture was finished, the man who commissioned it told Michelango that the nose was too big. Michelangeo argued vehemently that it was perfect. The man insisted. So the artist climbed his scaffolding with his chisel, hammer and some marble dust in this hand, pretended to chisel while releasing the dust but not actually touching anything and when he was finished, asked the buyer if that was better. "Perfect," said the patron.





The group walked to the Cathedral (Duomo) and we had to leave them as we had tickets to the Uffizi Gallery for 11 (our original request was for tickets at 2:00 but apparently even my English is not good enough to order museum tickets).

Simoni said the outside of the Duomo is magnificent but he didn't think the inside was as valuable and only a couple of people in our group climbed the nearly 500 steps to the top of the Dome (in background below)



(one women incurring serious blisters and food problems as a result). But the Uffizi.....There is so much in this museum that were were exhausted after an hour and a half and then had to limit ourselves to our favorite artists, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Titian, Rubens and Rembrandt, and even that was overwhelming. Botticelli's "Venus Rising from the Sea" was absolutely beautiful.






I think you would have to spend quite a bit of time here and just do one gallery a day to really appreciate it. It was also very hot, even though it was fairly early in the day.


The famous Ponte Vecchio in Florence (below). This is where people actually live over the bridge! Well we don't know if they really live there, but certainly the gold merchants all have shops there. 18 Karat gold is the specialty of Florentine jewelers. We did not buy jewelry there, but we were glad that we crossed the bridge (originally to look at the Pitt Palace) because we found a beautiful ceramic shop there, down a tiny alley. More on this later.





Gelato became a favorite as we ate ourselves across Florence . Actually Bill is eating his way across Italy. He has tried dark chocolate Gelato in every place we have been, in order to find the best. I fortunately have a more modest approach because I would like to be able to fit into my clothes on the cruise. A funny thing happened when we stopped at this little shop in Florence for Gelato. The woman at the table behind us noticed Bill's CU hat and started to talk to him, she was behind me so I couldn't see her without turning around,but when I did it turned out to be someone I knew in Boulder a long time ago and hadn't seen in about 20 years. She was there with her two granddaughters. Small world!





Finally, just before leaving Florence we found this fantastic ceramic store. The owner is an architect who came to study in Florence 20 years ago and worked in this little shop and now owns this shop and draws the designs for this pottery. We had been hoping to find a piece of ceramic for Kristin and Jerry while we were here, but Allesandro told us the good ceramics were all around Orvieto, where we are not going. We were happy to be able to ship a beautiful piece home to them and I have her website if anyone is interested. In addition she has renovated the three bedroom apartment over the shop and rents it out to people like us.



Tomorrow (the 10th) we are off to Venice,with a stop in Verona for lunch. More later!