Lost Together: Vatican City

We spent pretty much an entire day here. We began by touring the Vatican Museum. We admired work by Raphael and of course Michelangelo. At the end of the museum is the Sistine Chapel. It was astonishing! We took a guided tour, so we learned quite a bit. We knew that Michelangelo was arguably the greatest sculptor of his time, but we didn't know the pope basically forced him to paint. He hated painting and spent almost 10 years inside the chapel doing just that! In the end, it took him 4 years to paint the ceiling and you can actually see how his painting ability and scale improved throughout that time. Our guide explained that he spent so much time reaching upward painting above his head that he did permanent damage to his neck, back and eyes. It even got to the point that years after completion he had to hold books above his head in order to read and focus.

Michelangelo was just 30 when he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and almost 30 years later, when Michelangelo was in his early 60s, he was commissioned again, by a new pope, to repaint the Last Judgment on the front wall. This painting took 6 years to complete and was done completely on a ladder. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the chapel, but here are a couple we found online to show what we are talking about.

The ceiling:

The Last Judgment (Blue Wall):

It was kind of shocking once we realized that Michelangelo spent 10 years inside that dark chapel, forced to paint, when his true art was sculpting. He spent the entire time deteriorating his body by painting above his head, living on the scaffolding and ladders.

After the chapel we made our way to St. Peter's Basilica. This is it; the most important church in the world. The Pope's Bat Cave (or so Jesse calls it...) It is something you need to see to believe. It is massive and very extravagant. Our guide explained that St. Peter, the first Pope, was buried in this place beneath the church when it was originally built. St. Peter was crucified, but he didn't want to die in the same way as Jesus so he asked to be crucified upside down. In order to remove him from the cross the Romans had to chop his feet off.

Later on in history, the church was destroyed and completely rebuilt like we see it now because one of the popes thought it wasn't grand enough. During that time, they somehow forgot that the tomb of St. Peter was below it. Years later a team started searching below the church and actually found a tomb. The body they found inside was missing his feet.