Vatican Museums - The Classical World

After a well-timed stop for gelatto, we waited patiently outside the Vatican Museum entrance.  Going in the evening meant only a limited number of people would be allowed in, a wonderful reprise from the crowds who otherwise would all rightly be clamoring to see some of the world's most impressive art.  The Catholic church preserved much of the classical world at a time where no governing authority or other power could.  Drawing on the writings of Augustine, it was policy that the works of the pre-Christian world not be treated as pagan idolatry that would pervert the faithful, but as masterpieces created by beings made in God's image, through admiring the handiwork of his image bearers we might come to worship the One in whose image we are made.

Neither of us really knew what we were in for, but nonetheless we were darn near giddy with anticipation.  At last the doors opened, inviting us into something akin to a new world.  We first viewed what previously served as the Pope's private gardens, an open roofed room of peaceful contemplation.  In protected areas encircling the center, where a fountain stood, rests some of the most spectacular sculptures of the ancient world extant today.

A personal favorite is Laocoön and His Sons, which captures a scene from the Illiad where the Greek gods send snakes to stop Laocoön from warning the Trojans that the Greeks waited to ambush their city from inside the wooden horse they presented as a peace offering.  His face speaks of his anguish, not only at the ending of his own live and the lives of his children, but at the fall of his country.  I find myself thinking of it often when I turn on the news and see some of the events unfolding in my own country. 

This and the other statues surrounding it all date back to around the time of Christ, 1500 years before Michelangelo would ever pick up his chisel.  The quality of the work speaks to how Roman advancements in government translated into the arts, the likes of which would not be seen again in Europe in millennia.  When that quality of art did reemerge, it was through artists looking back at the ancients.  You can see this when you compare the sculpture of the river god, found in this garden, to Adam's reclined position in the Sistine Chapel, which we'll get to in a little bit.  

Moving on a little ways, the collection houses an incredible amount of artifacts from ancient Egypt,

which mummies and sarcophagi galore.  We also saw a huge collection of busts from the ancient world, and it was fun to see the bust of Socrates I've seen so often in books right in front of me.  

The other thing that really captured my imagination in the classical world section of the museum was the objects made of porphyry.  Porphyry is a very hard igneous rock, so hard in fact that it took special tempering techniques to make tools that could carve it.  Purple, or royal porphyry, comes from only a few places on earth, only one of which the Romans knew, so it was very rare in the empire.  Nonetheless, the Vatican museum houses some extraordinarily large pieces of porphyry artifacts, a huge basin 13 meters across in what is known as the round hall (statues, including a bronze of Hercules, surround it), and two enormous sarcophagi, believed to be of Helena and Constance, mother and sister of Constantine.

Helena and Constance were believed to be early converts to Christianity, and their influence might  have helped lead to the conversion of Constantine.  Much has been written of the legend of Constantine having a conversion experience because of a vision he had before the battle of Milvian Bridge, and whether his conversion was sincere (he apparently used the symbol of the Roman sun god when expedient afterwards).  The influence of Helena (since sainted) and Constance seems to me the far more likely story, and if so, these two people, little thought of for their own deeds, changed the world through their steady consistent witness.  Rome is such a wild ride for a history buff, where every few feet is the site of an event that forever shaped the world of today; the crowning of Charlemagne, the assassination of Caesar, the imperial palace, the arch of Titus.  You could rightly through the lives of these two women into that list.

Anyway, next on our travels, we will explore some of the art more contemporary with the Renaissance.  Omnia Vincit Amour.