Virtual Tour – Vatican Museums
You can travel in many ways. One of them, perfect in the times of the present quarantine, because available from the couch is offered by the Vatican Museums: virtual tour. You have a unique opportunity to admire the usually crowded rooms. Without standing in line to look at details that you usually wouldn’t be able to pay attention to. And it’s completely free. Just click here
and … choose which interiors you want to admire. You can choose from the Sistine Chapel, Pio-Clementino Museum, Chiaramonti Museum, Braccio Nuovo (New Wing), Raphael’s Rooms, Niccoline Chapel, and the Room of the Chiaroscuri, which we can translate as the Light and Shadows Room.
Virtual Tour – Raphael’s Rooms
I would like to take you today on a short journey through Raphael’s Rooms. This Renaissance genius worked on them for over 10 years, until his premature death. Even if you are not interested in art, you might have come across his name while visiting the Roman Pantheon, where he was buried according to his wish.
Raphael’s Rooms consists of four representative papal apartments on the second floor of the Vatican Palace. We must remember that the Vatican Museums are not traditional glass-case place. This is a living story and their wealth is immeasurable. Apart from paintings, sculptures, globes, and books, these museums are created by interiors.
The papal chambers are:
– Stanza (which means Room in Italian) dell’Incendio di Borgo (Borgo Fire) – intended for the meeting place of the Supreme Court of the Holy See, later also used as a dining room. It includes an illustration of the fire it takes its name from, but also several other works.
– Stanza della Segnatura – it is worth paying attention to the „Disputation of the Holy Sacrament” and the „The School of Athens” with the figures of Aristotle and Plato, probably the most famous of the paintings in all chambers. Initially, this room served as a library and private office of the Pope.
– Stanza di Eliodoro – served the pope’s private audiences. The main theme of the paintings is the miraculous protection of the Church by God in his difficult moments. There are scenes from both the Old Testament and medieval history.
– Stanza di Constantino (depicting the life of Constantine, the first Roman emperor to accept the Christian faith). This room was intended for formal ceremonies. The works were completed by Raphael’s students, based on the sketches he left behind after his death.
The decoration of Rooms was ordered by Pope Julius II, who appointed these chambers as his place of office. They were also used by his successors. The beauty of their performance is evidenced by the fact that no one knows them under the name of Julius II, their sponsor, but the artist who made them. Rafael Santi competed with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. He even immortalized their images at The School of Athens, under the figures of Plato and Heraclitus.
