we were supposed to have a walking tour of post-World War 2 architecture, but we misunderstood where to meet Randy, so 30 minutes later 4 of us headed off the the Sistine Chapel... which meant back to the Vatican to the Vatican museums; the chapel is actually within 100 feet of St. Peters, but they force you through the entire museum first. Not exactly a chore, they were incredibly dense with important stuff... rather stuffed though. Many sculpture hallways that went on and on and on... beautiful stuff, rather... piled though. Junkyard! Ha. Many Egyptian sarcophogi, a real mummy, much Greek and Roman statuary, room after room after room of Rafael-decorated rooms.... less exciting then i would have though.... a gallery of modern 'religious' art.... they were kind of trying a little hard with that one. refreshing breath before Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel though. and it was.... kind of anticlimatic. beautiful, gorgeous, near-breathing paintings, the outstretched hands of adam and god, many many half-dressed beautiful people falling off the ceilings... and a crick in my neck and art fatigue to go with it. So it goes. Afterwards we visited the tomb of John Paul 2 (Papa Giovanni Paulo Duex), trendily calm slab of white marble under St. Peters.... sigh no reverence really.
This stairway was by Borromini (I'm pretty sure, possibly Bramante or Bernini, but Borromini seems to do the cool stairs) in the museum complex.... the orders of the capitols changed with each rotation, seemed a little forced on the continuous spiral though. Made FLWright's Guggenheim seem a lot less revolutionary - this was also a display space, and just a tad bit older...
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