Alla Scoperta dei Musei Vaticani (2015): Season 1, Episode 5 - I Palazzi dei Musei - full transcript
The six million visitors
that every year
discover the wonders of
the Vatican Museums,
certainly remain fascinated
by these masterpieces,
but not everyone realizes
the buildings, the architecture,
the historical "containers"
which house and guards
these masterpieces.
Some of these areas are
really extraordinary,
like the one in which
we are now.
We are in the famous
Pigna Courtyard
and its name comes
from this artwork,
this enormous pinecone
four meters high, of the Roman period.
Probably it adorned a fountain
in the center of the Isis Temple,
or at least we think so.
This pinecone,
this sculpture was
then found in the Middle Ages,
near Campus Martius,
which is still today
called "Rione Pigna".
Just found, it was settled,
in the portico
of the Old St. Peter's Basilica
and Dante even mentioned it in the Hell,
but we don't know if
he had really seen it
when in 1300, it seems,
he went to Rome
for the first Jubilee.
The pinecone was placed here
at the beginning of the 1600,
in the background of this
scenic niche
facing the courtyard, known to all
as the "Nicchione".
At the sides of the Pigna,
there are two bronze peacocks.
Lower down, right
to the sides of a fountain,
there are two crouched lions
in basalt.
These are two Egyptian sculptures:
think, they date back to
the fourth century BC,
we know this because
there is engraved the name
of a pharaoh of that time,
Nectanebo I.
The Vatican Museums are surprising
not only for the masterpieces
which can be admired in their rooms
but also for the structures,
the buildings,
the architectures which host them.
So let's discover them.
The set of buildings which today
composes the Vatican Museums
is the result of a process of addition,
VATICAN MUSEUMS,
SOVRINTENDENZA OFFICE
which has been taking place over
five centuries from the founding nucleus,
during the pontificate of Julius II,
in the early sixteenth century.
THE CONSTANTINIAN BASILICA
THE VATICAN PALACES
SALA DUCALE
SALA REGIA
MAGNA CHAPEL
(THE SISTINE CHAPEL)
THE BORGIA TOWER
THE BELVEDERE OF INNOCENZO VIII
Julius II decided to connect
the old late medieval residence
at the north of St. Peter,
to the villa,
located on the Mount of Sant'Egidio.
Within the first year of his
Pontificate, he devised
a project with his architect
Donato Bramante.
Bramante arrived
in Rome in 1500,
WRITE AND ESSAYIST
for the Jubilee of that year,
he came here after some
previous experiences,
in Bergamo, and then in Milano.
And it is to him that
Pope Julius II entrusted
his will to re-design
St. Peter's Basilica.
The project of Bramante
was a project that
provided many demolitions,
Bramante was called
"the Ruinante",
and certainly there was a need
to demolish and rebuild.
The construction of a building
next to St. Peter
went hand in hand
with the idea of a Pope
living in Saint Peter's
and not in St. John Lateran.
So it was born the idea of
two parallel paths,
one covered, (EAST ARM )
at the level
of the current Pigna Courtyard,
and the other one at a raised level
that now
it is a large terrace
opened to the sky of Rome.
THE STATUES COURTYARD
The project, from the beginning,
was set up as a system
divided into three sections:
an upper court,
a lower courtyard
and a ladder system that put in
communication the different levels.
It was made by a sequence of
three large terraces
VATICAN MUSEUMS, PAPAL CARRIAGES,
COSTUMES AND ARMS UNIT
and the lower one was often used
for the battles between knights,
rather than the theater shows.
A painting shows us a group
of Cardinals
overlooking the lower courtyard,
in which it plays a naomachia,
a naval battle.
This gives to the
Belvedere space
a sort of theatrical character,
and actually it was an
architectural intent.
Since the early Bramante projects,
considering the system
of terraces at different heights,
that characterized the orography
of the Monte Sant'Egidio,
that space was meant to become
overtime
a theater overlooking
the lower part of the Belvedere.
WEST ARM
At that moment the design conceived
by Bramante, since its earliest stages,
came to its final shape.
VATICAN APOSTOLIC LIBRARY
NEW ARM
PIGNA COURTYARD
LIBRARY COURTYARD
BELVEDERE COURTYARD
The visitor who approaches the walls of the
Vatican State to enter the Museums,
VATICAN MUSEUMS,
CONTEMPORARY ART DEPARTMENT
finds two portals: the
oldest, that of marble,
is the ancient entrance
to the Vatican Museums,
the exit portal
reminds us an epochal fact:
it is the first
Opening of the Vatican State
and of the Vatican Museums
on the Italian territory.
Previously, the entries to the Museums
were within the City,
so there wasn't a direct entrance.
Then to access
to the Museums you entered through
the bronze gates,
went up the grand staircase
then from the Courtyard San Namaso
in the Sala Regia
and from that, you visited
the Sistine Chapel
and then the rest of the collection.
Around the turn of the nineties,
with the approaching of the
Jubilee of 2000,
it was decided to create
a new entrance
so that to separate permanently
the visitors who accessed to the Museums
from those who were leaving.
For the new entrance they made
new architectural spaces for the
reception, the rise
to the entrance level
of the Vatican Museums...
and also other works equipment
and the new portal.
An Italian artist, Cecco Bonanotte,
made the bronze door,
characterized by the
"stiacciato", a sculptural
technique, a relief that
almost slips to light,
dedicated to the popes,
the true protagonists of
the history of the Museums,
who were portraited on the rear
doors
which are obviously visible
only from the inside of the atrium,
when the door is
closed or approached.
Julius II called Bramante
who realized a staircase designed
as a continuous ramp
leading to the different floors
of the Belvedere Palace.
From the city of
Rome the Bramante's
staircase seems as
a sort of tower.
BELVEDERE OF INNOCENZO VIII
AND BRAMANTE STAIRCASE
THE STATUES COURTYARD
Pope Ganganelli relied on
architect Michelangelo Simonetti
who improved the courtyard of
the Belvedere Palace
OCTAGONAL COURTYARD
(EX STATUES COURTYARD)
adding this porch which hosts
the oldest and the most fundamental
masterpieces,
as Laocoön and the Apollo,
then he also realized environments
like the Greek Cross Room
PIO CLEMENTINO MUSEUM
and the Round Hall
Now We find ourselves in one
of the most spectacular staircase of the
Italian architecture...
Think, it was made
more or less in the thirties,
when here in the Vatican was
built the new Pinacoteca,
by the architect engineer
Giuseppe Momo
and this is not the only work
he designed.
He also realized, for example,
the St. Anna Gate,
one of the main entrances of the
Vatican State,
and then also
the Governorate Palace
and even the
train station palace
inside the Vatican City.
You see right away that this
staircase is very special,
at first glance it reminds us
that of Bramante
as if to bind, let's say,
the two masterpieces in the
architectural history.
But when you look at these friezes
you realize that
this staircase is
a masterpiece in its
bronze work.
There are
many papal coat of arms,
the names of popes, but also
elements
that refer, for example,
to the cornucopias.
As well Its architecture and
engineering is a masterpiece.
It is not a single
ramp that goes up
but two flights that are
one inside the other,
a bit as the one of the DNA.
in the past this allowed
visitors to
climb, to enter the Museums,
but at the same time
to the other visitors, who had
ended the visits, to get out.
it was a kind of
special effect, an extraordinary
glance that accompanied
the visit
of those who had finished their trip
in the history and art.
Pius VI Braschi said that
the masterpieces of classical antiquity
deserved a frame
and an appropriate comment.
This was the thought of the great
Popes of the past,
and thank goodness they thought so,
because they gave us
this extraordinary ensemble
where the container is beautiful
as the content,
and vice versa.
This is simply wonderful.
Now the existing spaces were not
remodeled for new purposes
TOPOGRAPHY ANCIENT ITALY,
UNIVERSITA' DI FIRENZE,
with statues and inscriptions,
but a new museum was built
and so this attempt
to integrate ancient sculpture
with ancient architecture.
Father Luigi Ungarelli
decided to decorate
VATICAN MUSEUMS, ORIENTAL
ANTIQUITY DEPARTMENT
the halls of the Museum in
the EgyptianiZing manner
using a tempera technique:
there are paintings
recalling Egyptian settings,
sphinxes, pyramids,
walls painted in faux alabaster,
and then an inscription
in the first two
room of the Museum.
In hieroglyphics writing, he wrote
the founding date of the museum
and a number of honors to
the Pontiff Pope Gregory,
who wanted his name written
within a cartouche.
On this splendid vault
there are many frames
representing the Christian history
of this Peninsula.
At each region matches a frame
representing the most important
religious facts.
the Gargano matches with
the appearance of the Archangel Michael,
the Marche corresponds to
the representation of angels
carrying the Loreto house
and gradually you get
up to Lombardia
in which there is the representation
of one of the most important facts
of the life of St. Ambrose,
the saint protector of Milano.
At the center we find Rome,
the empire capital
but above all, the office of the papacy,
from which the Catholicism started
and spread in the rest of the world.
Boncompagni Pope was very interested
in science,
culture and art,
and his calendar reform
was one of the most remarkable
and famous
episode in the history.
Astronomical studies had
found a discrepancy
between the Julian calendar,
in effect at that time,
and the astronomical cardinal point,
the real one.
In order to remedy this discrepancy,
Pope Gregory XIII
established a commission
to study the problems
relating to the calendar
so as to give an universal rule.
The Pope had a purpose:
he wanted to "ribuild"
the Europe and the Church.
On one side, he realized
the Italian regions
bordering the Adriatic sea
and on the other side instead
the Italian regions
bordering the Tyrrhenian Sea.
From Friuli, Piemonte,
Lombardia,
descending to
Calabria and Sicily,
you see Sicily overturned
because it was the view from Rome
and not seen from the satellite as we
today we are accustomed to see it.
In this way from north to south,
the Pope could cross Italy
without leaving Rome.
GREGORIAN PROFANE MUSEUM
It was a very simple building,
a huge parallelepiped
shape building,
at the death of Pope John XXIII.
Paul VI was on the Papal Throne.
VATICAN MUSEUMS, CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY
DEPARTMENT
Paul VI was a great lover of the arts,
very attentive to the excellence of
contemporary art.
He called a team of Roman
architects: Passarelli team,
and he entrusted them the task
to transform
this large cuboide building,
in an updated museum.
Large pillars and iron beams
left exposed
with walls and dividers in
reinforced concrete,
it's an understated architecture
regarding the color
but it's very powerful from
an architectural point of view
without any embellishment
which was however offered
by an extremely architectural
innovative vision for its time,
we are in the early seventies,
when the relation between archeology
and Classicism
was subjected to a stress
and a formal contrast.
It's a very modern architecture,
a structure that does not hide,
doesn't camouflage itself
but it rather becomes the protagonist,
with these metal pipes
very modern, almost invasive.
The Borgia apartments,
as its name says,
were the private apartments
of Alexander VI Borgia;
their rooms were decorated by
the Pinturicchio,
and those paintings
seemed to be in contrast
with the works of
contemporary art.
Neverthless there is a
possibility of a dialogue
because the specificity of
the Vatican Museums
is that to be a
stratified historical museum,
a sort of show schedule
where forms and functions
are overlapped.
Now we are in a magnificent place,
Look, the
Galleries of the Library,
so called because in the past
they housed
the Vatican Apostolic Library,
a library wanted
precisely by Pope Nicholas V,
we are in 1450...
And initially this library
also collected many works,
those remained, of the great
library of Constantinople
following the man's tradition
of gathering knowledge
in large libraries.
Imagine the Library
of Alexandria,
so imagine these cabinets filled
with papyrus, scrolls,
and ancient books.
But in these places there were no
only written works,
there were also
archaeological finds.
We continue this way
inside the Library Gallery...
If we raise our eyes
beyond these famous cabinets,
we see many painted representations
of the Popes
in particular moments
of their activities.
Those Popes had
enriched the collections
and expanded the museum. There was one
in particular: Pius VI.
Pius VI had surely made
many urban works in Rome...
and here he is represented
in many places of the Vatican Museums,
maybe the same ones where today
unsuspecting visitors pass...
What is surprising is that
looking at these
representations,
we realize that
it is the museum that tells its own story,
another of the effects
of these amazing places.
The galleries of the Library
born
as a set composed by
more architectural segments
all originated by
the first plan of
Donato Bramante.
We are referring to the
galleries that
VATICAN MUSEUMS, DECORATIVE ARTS
DEPARTMENT
from the Sistine up to the
Atrium of the Four Gates,
are approximately
three hundred meters of development
GALLERIES OF VATICAN LIBRARY
AND SISTINE HALL
and they graft to the Sistine Salon
forming a kind of "T".
A prudent colonization, let's say so,
of spaces began
from those to the north,
the so-called Pauline Rooms,
the first Pontiff
who made changes in the Library
immediately
after the death of Sixtus V.
These first two rooms
have a decoration
rather well known
even to the most casual tourist,
because it depicts, among
so many things, even
Michelangelo's project of
St. Peter,
the one with the Greek cross plan;
then in the opposite wall is depicted
the famous
Sistine Obelisk transportation,
that is, the famous obelisk
which was moved from the south
Basilica of St. Peter
to the center of
St. Peter's Square in 1586.
This fresco looms
at the center of one of the galleries,
and it is precisely one of the subjects
that dates back
to the first decorative wave,
let's call it,
of the Sistine frescoes.
The book is the true protagonist,
dumb but present,
of this whole great decoration
and of the same functionality
of these spaces as well.
The first time we find the use of
the word
"Vatican Museum",
is in the documents
and marble inscriptions
that decorate some specific areas
of this famous Library gallery,
when Benedict XIV
creates the first-ever
of those that will be
the future Vatican Museums.
The first cell of birth
of the Museum is
the so-called Christian,
or Sacred Museum created by
Benedict XIV.
Popes and scholars had the idea
to create a Museum
which had a Christian basis,
especially to safeguard
all the ancient Christian artworks
which were missing:
as sarcophagi used as fountains...
VATICAN MUSEUMS, DECORATIVE ARTS
DEPARTMENT- ASSISTANT
In short, they wanted to
contrast this degradation,
and prevent the lost
of important objects of the Christianity.
In 1756 it started
the construction of the Christian Museum,
at the far end of the
Gallery of Urban VIII,
and in 1757 Pope Benedict XIV
confirmed its constitution.
They authorized the purchase of
numerous private collections
as well as the
catacomb excavations
which revealead the first findings
organized in a modern way.
So Benedict XIV
was the first to have the idea
of founding a Museum
which could document all this.
Immediately after, Clement XIII
had the idea to enlarge
this concept and therefore
to create a Profane Museum
which could be the equivalent,
theoretically, of the Christian Museum;
it was a museum of pagan antiquities
which could corroborate
with archeology facts
and the archaeological discoveries
the truth of the
historical sources.
They are the so-called objects
"instrumentum domesticum":
mirrors, cookware, colanders,
the objects of worship,
small figurines
which were placed in the altars
or dedicated in the temples,
there are lamps
needed for lighting,
military decorations, medallions,
for example, medallions in hard stone
which were "dona militaria".
Among the most important finds
in the Christian Museum
there is
the Collection of Golden glasses,
the "prince" collection,
the largest in the world:
they were funds of glass cups
with gold leaf decorations
enclosed between the bottom layer
of the cup or the plate
and the body of the container.
It was also made the hypothesis
that they were used
in funeral banquets
and then broken for
propitiatory purposes,
and then used to make decoration
on the niches walls.
It is probably an image of Athena,
a particularly important object
because the chryselephantine statues
preserved are not many,
they are very few.
It tells episodes of
the Odyssey features
taken from books: from
the tenth to twelfth.
They are focused, for example
on the meeting of Ulysses
with Estrigoni,
then the escape to the Isle of
the sorceress Circe...
The companions of Odysseus
transformed into pigs
and then turned back into men,
and then the Odysseus' descent
in the Underworld.
Here there are the two first
museums
in the complex of the Vatican Museums,
- and to some extent
with the Christians -
they are the first museums
in the entire city of Rome
and therefore, by extension, we could
say almost in Europe.
Here, in this museum, the iconography
corresponds to the concepts
of conservation
and enhancement of the artworks,
both Christian and profane.
It shows a beautiful Minerva
suspended in the sky,
while sitting, she imperiously
points to a putto
to rescue an artwork
subtracting it from the time
represented as a winged old man
who stretches his arms
to grasp it:
the artwork is saved and taken
in an ancient porticoed building
that is visible in the lower
part of the fresco, on the right.
This vision of
a protection concept
is applied to the Museum,
the birth of
a modern Museum.
The presence of a Museum
is a civic duty
for a society that
believes in certain values,
and it is significant
that the Church of the eighteenth century
has been the interpreter
of this aim.
This means that the Church is not
aristocratically
closed on itself, but is
a Church sharing all
the values of civilization
that now seem incredible.
Sometimes what may seem
a simple decoration,
if you watch it closely, it can
conceal aspects
VATICAN MUSEUMS, EPIGRAPHY
DEPARTMENT
that transcend absolutely
its pure decorative appearance.
This makes me assume that even
many of the decorations
and the works that
we look in a certain way,
they can hide
other aspects that allow us
to learn about a story
which is not written.
We are now outside
the Vatican Pinacoteca,
this building dates
the thirties of the twentieth century
and it is the work of the architect
Luca Beltrami,
who accepted many
Pope's suggestions: the pope was Pius XI.
This building's
appearance reminds
the Renaissance architecture
with bricks,
niches for statues,
majolica, mosaics
and it is a very functional
building
but also visually appealing.
Actually, the point is
that there has never been
a home for the paintings,
for painting masterpieces.
Only in 1790, thanks to Pius VI,
it was created the first group
of 118 artworks,
then Napoleon arrived
and he seized everything.
But these works, after
the defeat of Waterloo,
returned here to the Vatican
and over time other acquisitions
were made,
let's say there was
an enrichment of masterpieces
which are today
a truly extraordinary collection.
In these rooms, 18 rooms,
are kept well 500 paintings,
often absolute masterpieces.
Five hundred works are not many,
compared to other collections
or Italian or foreign galleries,
but what here
is really impressive
is the quality of these masterpieces.
In effect they were made
by the greatest Italian
artists from the Middle Ages
to the nineteenth century
And so we move from a room to
the other, following this thread
of creativity, oestrus,
quality of the artworks.
Inside this building
you can admire artworks
by Giotto, Raphael,
Leonardo or even Veronese.
But now we want to concentrate on
another work,
the famous
"The Entombment of Christ," by Caravaggio.
It is interesting to see how
the great Lombard painter
represented a subject, drawing on
Michelangelo's "Pieta",
in the figure of Christ,
as well as an echo of Raffaello's work
the "Transport of Christ in the Sepulchre"
located at the Galleria Borghese,
in Perugia.
Caravaggio's works rival with
Michelangelo's ones,
and his name was the same: Michelangelo...
Caravaggio conceived a kind of
sculptural group painting,
in fact, on the stone
Sepulchre turned as a corner
there is a massing of figures
that makes
a real sculpture group, and in
center there's Christ,
with his leaning arm
which has a symbolic value,
in fact the finger of Christ
touches the stone
the cornerstone
mentioned in the Holy Writ.
It is a clear the reference to
the rejected stone
that will become the cornerstone of
the Church
and then here is represented
the whole Church,
the early Church born
in the sacrifice of Christ,
the Sacrifice which alludes
the Resurrection.
We see the praying figures,
there is the figure of the Virgin
who opens her arms to form a cross,
alluding precisely to the
Christ's Death,
there is the figure of Mary of Cleophas,
who raises her hands up,
as the Scripture,
the New Testament,
the Psalms say;
she raises her hands up, as
Christians were represented
in the first-century
in the catacombs with praying.
It is a double movement and then
the depth is there, isn't it?
The death is darkness
however, the plant that is there
alludes to the Resurrection.
That is an evergreen plant,
a "candelaria"
and its representation, fully explained,
has the meaning of The Resurrection
Symbolic references and
artistic references too
show that Caravaggio
was a cultured artist
and not a rude, uncultured, rebellious man
that literature, in particular the Romantic
literature, passed on us...
Of course, Caravaggio was
a rebellious character,
and this is a fundamental point
to understand his personality,
and that black legend that
depicts Caravaggio as crazy and evil
just going around
to make murders and
strange things is
totally misrepresented.
Actually he was a character
with great spirituality.
The beauty of art history is
like a maze, you enter and you find
references, suggestions:
when you look at a painting
is like, in a sense, to
look at all the pictures
because inside an author,
inside a work, you can see
the artists who came before him,
who contributed
of his education,
and were near to him
in his evolution...
it's like they even talk
inside the artwork.
This is the beauty of our job.
The work of art itself is
purely relative,
but what's the meaning of "relative"?
This means that it is
relating to everything:
the artwork is related to the master
that has painted it,
it is related to the customer
who commissioned it,
it is in relation to the culture of
its time.
The Vatican Pinacoteca gives us
these extraordinary opportunities
to reflect about all this.
We visited
the history of the Vatican Museums
its incredible collections,
its masterpieces,
and we've found out how all this
is actually the result of
centuries
and the love
for the sense of beauty.
Now we are
in a meaningful place,
the Pigna Courtyard,
and right here, in
evening openings
take place many cultural
initiatives or concerts,
as a proof that the Vatican Museums
are not a enclosed space,
a static place
which holds the past
but a living structure,
an open structure,
open to innovation,
new languages, open to the future.
And this will be the theme
of our next stage.
we're going to find out the
Modern Art collections.
and also we will enter places
where the public usually does not get in.
that every year
discover the wonders of
the Vatican Museums,
certainly remain fascinated
by these masterpieces,
but not everyone realizes
the buildings, the architecture,
the historical "containers"
which house and guards
these masterpieces.
Some of these areas are
really extraordinary,
like the one in which
we are now.
We are in the famous
Pigna Courtyard
and its name comes
from this artwork,
this enormous pinecone
four meters high, of the Roman period.
Probably it adorned a fountain
in the center of the Isis Temple,
or at least we think so.
This pinecone,
this sculpture was
then found in the Middle Ages,
near Campus Martius,
which is still today
called "Rione Pigna".
Just found, it was settled,
in the portico
of the Old St. Peter's Basilica
and Dante even mentioned it in the Hell,
but we don't know if
he had really seen it
when in 1300, it seems,
he went to Rome
for the first Jubilee.
The pinecone was placed here
at the beginning of the 1600,
in the background of this
scenic niche
facing the courtyard, known to all
as the "Nicchione".
At the sides of the Pigna,
there are two bronze peacocks.
Lower down, right
to the sides of a fountain,
there are two crouched lions
in basalt.
These are two Egyptian sculptures:
think, they date back to
the fourth century BC,
we know this because
there is engraved the name
of a pharaoh of that time,
Nectanebo I.
The Vatican Museums are surprising
not only for the masterpieces
which can be admired in their rooms
but also for the structures,
the buildings,
the architectures which host them.
So let's discover them.
The set of buildings which today
composes the Vatican Museums
is the result of a process of addition,
VATICAN MUSEUMS,
SOVRINTENDENZA OFFICE
which has been taking place over
five centuries from the founding nucleus,
during the pontificate of Julius II,
in the early sixteenth century.
THE CONSTANTINIAN BASILICA
THE VATICAN PALACES
SALA DUCALE
SALA REGIA
MAGNA CHAPEL
(THE SISTINE CHAPEL)
THE BORGIA TOWER
THE BELVEDERE OF INNOCENZO VIII
Julius II decided to connect
the old late medieval residence
at the north of St. Peter,
to the villa,
located on the Mount of Sant'Egidio.
Within the first year of his
Pontificate, he devised
a project with his architect
Donato Bramante.
Bramante arrived
in Rome in 1500,
WRITE AND ESSAYIST
for the Jubilee of that year,
he came here after some
previous experiences,
in Bergamo, and then in Milano.
And it is to him that
Pope Julius II entrusted
his will to re-design
St. Peter's Basilica.
The project of Bramante
was a project that
provided many demolitions,
Bramante was called
"the Ruinante",
and certainly there was a need
to demolish and rebuild.
The construction of a building
next to St. Peter
went hand in hand
with the idea of a Pope
living in Saint Peter's
and not in St. John Lateran.
So it was born the idea of
two parallel paths,
one covered, (EAST ARM )
at the level
of the current Pigna Courtyard,
and the other one at a raised level
that now
it is a large terrace
opened to the sky of Rome.
THE STATUES COURTYARD
The project, from the beginning,
was set up as a system
divided into three sections:
an upper court,
a lower courtyard
and a ladder system that put in
communication the different levels.
It was made by a sequence of
three large terraces
VATICAN MUSEUMS, PAPAL CARRIAGES,
COSTUMES AND ARMS UNIT
and the lower one was often used
for the battles between knights,
rather than the theater shows.
A painting shows us a group
of Cardinals
overlooking the lower courtyard,
in which it plays a naomachia,
a naval battle.
This gives to the
Belvedere space
a sort of theatrical character,
and actually it was an
architectural intent.
Since the early Bramante projects,
considering the system
of terraces at different heights,
that characterized the orography
of the Monte Sant'Egidio,
that space was meant to become
overtime
a theater overlooking
the lower part of the Belvedere.
WEST ARM
At that moment the design conceived
by Bramante, since its earliest stages,
came to its final shape.
VATICAN APOSTOLIC LIBRARY
NEW ARM
PIGNA COURTYARD
LIBRARY COURTYARD
BELVEDERE COURTYARD
The visitor who approaches the walls of the
Vatican State to enter the Museums,
VATICAN MUSEUMS,
CONTEMPORARY ART DEPARTMENT
finds two portals: the
oldest, that of marble,
is the ancient entrance
to the Vatican Museums,
the exit portal
reminds us an epochal fact:
it is the first
Opening of the Vatican State
and of the Vatican Museums
on the Italian territory.
Previously, the entries to the Museums
were within the City,
so there wasn't a direct entrance.
Then to access
to the Museums you entered through
the bronze gates,
went up the grand staircase
then from the Courtyard San Namaso
in the Sala Regia
and from that, you visited
the Sistine Chapel
and then the rest of the collection.
Around the turn of the nineties,
with the approaching of the
Jubilee of 2000,
it was decided to create
a new entrance
so that to separate permanently
the visitors who accessed to the Museums
from those who were leaving.
For the new entrance they made
new architectural spaces for the
reception, the rise
to the entrance level
of the Vatican Museums...
and also other works equipment
and the new portal.
An Italian artist, Cecco Bonanotte,
made the bronze door,
characterized by the
"stiacciato", a sculptural
technique, a relief that
almost slips to light,
dedicated to the popes,
the true protagonists of
the history of the Museums,
who were portraited on the rear
doors
which are obviously visible
only from the inside of the atrium,
when the door is
closed or approached.
Julius II called Bramante
who realized a staircase designed
as a continuous ramp
leading to the different floors
of the Belvedere Palace.
From the city of
Rome the Bramante's
staircase seems as
a sort of tower.
BELVEDERE OF INNOCENZO VIII
AND BRAMANTE STAIRCASE
THE STATUES COURTYARD
Pope Ganganelli relied on
architect Michelangelo Simonetti
who improved the courtyard of
the Belvedere Palace
OCTAGONAL COURTYARD
(EX STATUES COURTYARD)
adding this porch which hosts
the oldest and the most fundamental
masterpieces,
as Laocoön and the Apollo,
then he also realized environments
like the Greek Cross Room
PIO CLEMENTINO MUSEUM
and the Round Hall
Now We find ourselves in one
of the most spectacular staircase of the
Italian architecture...
Think, it was made
more or less in the thirties,
when here in the Vatican was
built the new Pinacoteca,
by the architect engineer
Giuseppe Momo
and this is not the only work
he designed.
He also realized, for example,
the St. Anna Gate,
one of the main entrances of the
Vatican State,
and then also
the Governorate Palace
and even the
train station palace
inside the Vatican City.
You see right away that this
staircase is very special,
at first glance it reminds us
that of Bramante
as if to bind, let's say,
the two masterpieces in the
architectural history.
But when you look at these friezes
you realize that
this staircase is
a masterpiece in its
bronze work.
There are
many papal coat of arms,
the names of popes, but also
elements
that refer, for example,
to the cornucopias.
As well Its architecture and
engineering is a masterpiece.
It is not a single
ramp that goes up
but two flights that are
one inside the other,
a bit as the one of the DNA.
in the past this allowed
visitors to
climb, to enter the Museums,
but at the same time
to the other visitors, who had
ended the visits, to get out.
it was a kind of
special effect, an extraordinary
glance that accompanied
the visit
of those who had finished their trip
in the history and art.
Pius VI Braschi said that
the masterpieces of classical antiquity
deserved a frame
and an appropriate comment.
This was the thought of the great
Popes of the past,
and thank goodness they thought so,
because they gave us
this extraordinary ensemble
where the container is beautiful
as the content,
and vice versa.
This is simply wonderful.
Now the existing spaces were not
remodeled for new purposes
TOPOGRAPHY ANCIENT ITALY,
UNIVERSITA' DI FIRENZE,
with statues and inscriptions,
but a new museum was built
and so this attempt
to integrate ancient sculpture
with ancient architecture.
Father Luigi Ungarelli
decided to decorate
VATICAN MUSEUMS, ORIENTAL
ANTIQUITY DEPARTMENT
the halls of the Museum in
the EgyptianiZing manner
using a tempera technique:
there are paintings
recalling Egyptian settings,
sphinxes, pyramids,
walls painted in faux alabaster,
and then an inscription
in the first two
room of the Museum.
In hieroglyphics writing, he wrote
the founding date of the museum
and a number of honors to
the Pontiff Pope Gregory,
who wanted his name written
within a cartouche.
On this splendid vault
there are many frames
representing the Christian history
of this Peninsula.
At each region matches a frame
representing the most important
religious facts.
the Gargano matches with
the appearance of the Archangel Michael,
the Marche corresponds to
the representation of angels
carrying the Loreto house
and gradually you get
up to Lombardia
in which there is the representation
of one of the most important facts
of the life of St. Ambrose,
the saint protector of Milano.
At the center we find Rome,
the empire capital
but above all, the office of the papacy,
from which the Catholicism started
and spread in the rest of the world.
Boncompagni Pope was very interested
in science,
culture and art,
and his calendar reform
was one of the most remarkable
and famous
episode in the history.
Astronomical studies had
found a discrepancy
between the Julian calendar,
in effect at that time,
and the astronomical cardinal point,
the real one.
In order to remedy this discrepancy,
Pope Gregory XIII
established a commission
to study the problems
relating to the calendar
so as to give an universal rule.
The Pope had a purpose:
he wanted to "ribuild"
the Europe and the Church.
On one side, he realized
the Italian regions
bordering the Adriatic sea
and on the other side instead
the Italian regions
bordering the Tyrrhenian Sea.
From Friuli, Piemonte,
Lombardia,
descending to
Calabria and Sicily,
you see Sicily overturned
because it was the view from Rome
and not seen from the satellite as we
today we are accustomed to see it.
In this way from north to south,
the Pope could cross Italy
without leaving Rome.
GREGORIAN PROFANE MUSEUM
It was a very simple building,
a huge parallelepiped
shape building,
at the death of Pope John XXIII.
Paul VI was on the Papal Throne.
VATICAN MUSEUMS, CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY
DEPARTMENT
Paul VI was a great lover of the arts,
very attentive to the excellence of
contemporary art.
He called a team of Roman
architects: Passarelli team,
and he entrusted them the task
to transform
this large cuboide building,
in an updated museum.
Large pillars and iron beams
left exposed
with walls and dividers in
reinforced concrete,
it's an understated architecture
regarding the color
but it's very powerful from
an architectural point of view
without any embellishment
which was however offered
by an extremely architectural
innovative vision for its time,
we are in the early seventies,
when the relation between archeology
and Classicism
was subjected to a stress
and a formal contrast.
It's a very modern architecture,
a structure that does not hide,
doesn't camouflage itself
but it rather becomes the protagonist,
with these metal pipes
very modern, almost invasive.
The Borgia apartments,
as its name says,
were the private apartments
of Alexander VI Borgia;
their rooms were decorated by
the Pinturicchio,
and those paintings
seemed to be in contrast
with the works of
contemporary art.
Neverthless there is a
possibility of a dialogue
because the specificity of
the Vatican Museums
is that to be a
stratified historical museum,
a sort of show schedule
where forms and functions
are overlapped.
Now we are in a magnificent place,
Look, the
Galleries of the Library,
so called because in the past
they housed
the Vatican Apostolic Library,
a library wanted
precisely by Pope Nicholas V,
we are in 1450...
And initially this library
also collected many works,
those remained, of the great
library of Constantinople
following the man's tradition
of gathering knowledge
in large libraries.
Imagine the Library
of Alexandria,
so imagine these cabinets filled
with papyrus, scrolls,
and ancient books.
But in these places there were no
only written works,
there were also
archaeological finds.
We continue this way
inside the Library Gallery...
If we raise our eyes
beyond these famous cabinets,
we see many painted representations
of the Popes
in particular moments
of their activities.
Those Popes had
enriched the collections
and expanded the museum. There was one
in particular: Pius VI.
Pius VI had surely made
many urban works in Rome...
and here he is represented
in many places of the Vatican Museums,
maybe the same ones where today
unsuspecting visitors pass...
What is surprising is that
looking at these
representations,
we realize that
it is the museum that tells its own story,
another of the effects
of these amazing places.
The galleries of the Library
born
as a set composed by
more architectural segments
all originated by
the first plan of
Donato Bramante.
We are referring to the
galleries that
VATICAN MUSEUMS, DECORATIVE ARTS
DEPARTMENT
from the Sistine up to the
Atrium of the Four Gates,
are approximately
three hundred meters of development
GALLERIES OF VATICAN LIBRARY
AND SISTINE HALL
and they graft to the Sistine Salon
forming a kind of "T".
A prudent colonization, let's say so,
of spaces began
from those to the north,
the so-called Pauline Rooms,
the first Pontiff
who made changes in the Library
immediately
after the death of Sixtus V.
These first two rooms
have a decoration
rather well known
even to the most casual tourist,
because it depicts, among
so many things, even
Michelangelo's project of
St. Peter,
the one with the Greek cross plan;
then in the opposite wall is depicted
the famous
Sistine Obelisk transportation,
that is, the famous obelisk
which was moved from the south
Basilica of St. Peter
to the center of
St. Peter's Square in 1586.
This fresco looms
at the center of one of the galleries,
and it is precisely one of the subjects
that dates back
to the first decorative wave,
let's call it,
of the Sistine frescoes.
The book is the true protagonist,
dumb but present,
of this whole great decoration
and of the same functionality
of these spaces as well.
The first time we find the use of
the word
"Vatican Museum",
is in the documents
and marble inscriptions
that decorate some specific areas
of this famous Library gallery,
when Benedict XIV
creates the first-ever
of those that will be
the future Vatican Museums.
The first cell of birth
of the Museum is
the so-called Christian,
or Sacred Museum created by
Benedict XIV.
Popes and scholars had the idea
to create a Museum
which had a Christian basis,
especially to safeguard
all the ancient Christian artworks
which were missing:
as sarcophagi used as fountains...
VATICAN MUSEUMS, DECORATIVE ARTS
DEPARTMENT- ASSISTANT
In short, they wanted to
contrast this degradation,
and prevent the lost
of important objects of the Christianity.
In 1756 it started
the construction of the Christian Museum,
at the far end of the
Gallery of Urban VIII,
and in 1757 Pope Benedict XIV
confirmed its constitution.
They authorized the purchase of
numerous private collections
as well as the
catacomb excavations
which revealead the first findings
organized in a modern way.
So Benedict XIV
was the first to have the idea
of founding a Museum
which could document all this.
Immediately after, Clement XIII
had the idea to enlarge
this concept and therefore
to create a Profane Museum
which could be the equivalent,
theoretically, of the Christian Museum;
it was a museum of pagan antiquities
which could corroborate
with archeology facts
and the archaeological discoveries
the truth of the
historical sources.
They are the so-called objects
"instrumentum domesticum":
mirrors, cookware, colanders,
the objects of worship,
small figurines
which were placed in the altars
or dedicated in the temples,
there are lamps
needed for lighting,
military decorations, medallions,
for example, medallions in hard stone
which were "dona militaria".
Among the most important finds
in the Christian Museum
there is
the Collection of Golden glasses,
the "prince" collection,
the largest in the world:
they were funds of glass cups
with gold leaf decorations
enclosed between the bottom layer
of the cup or the plate
and the body of the container.
It was also made the hypothesis
that they were used
in funeral banquets
and then broken for
propitiatory purposes,
and then used to make decoration
on the niches walls.
It is probably an image of Athena,
a particularly important object
because the chryselephantine statues
preserved are not many,
they are very few.
It tells episodes of
the Odyssey features
taken from books: from
the tenth to twelfth.
They are focused, for example
on the meeting of Ulysses
with Estrigoni,
then the escape to the Isle of
the sorceress Circe...
The companions of Odysseus
transformed into pigs
and then turned back into men,
and then the Odysseus' descent
in the Underworld.
Here there are the two first
museums
in the complex of the Vatican Museums,
- and to some extent
with the Christians -
they are the first museums
in the entire city of Rome
and therefore, by extension, we could
say almost in Europe.
Here, in this museum, the iconography
corresponds to the concepts
of conservation
and enhancement of the artworks,
both Christian and profane.
It shows a beautiful Minerva
suspended in the sky,
while sitting, she imperiously
points to a putto
to rescue an artwork
subtracting it from the time
represented as a winged old man
who stretches his arms
to grasp it:
the artwork is saved and taken
in an ancient porticoed building
that is visible in the lower
part of the fresco, on the right.
This vision of
a protection concept
is applied to the Museum,
the birth of
a modern Museum.
The presence of a Museum
is a civic duty
for a society that
believes in certain values,
and it is significant
that the Church of the eighteenth century
has been the interpreter
of this aim.
This means that the Church is not
aristocratically
closed on itself, but is
a Church sharing all
the values of civilization
that now seem incredible.
Sometimes what may seem
a simple decoration,
if you watch it closely, it can
conceal aspects
VATICAN MUSEUMS, EPIGRAPHY
DEPARTMENT
that transcend absolutely
its pure decorative appearance.
This makes me assume that even
many of the decorations
and the works that
we look in a certain way,
they can hide
other aspects that allow us
to learn about a story
which is not written.
We are now outside
the Vatican Pinacoteca,
this building dates
the thirties of the twentieth century
and it is the work of the architect
Luca Beltrami,
who accepted many
Pope's suggestions: the pope was Pius XI.
This building's
appearance reminds
the Renaissance architecture
with bricks,
niches for statues,
majolica, mosaics
and it is a very functional
building
but also visually appealing.
Actually, the point is
that there has never been
a home for the paintings,
for painting masterpieces.
Only in 1790, thanks to Pius VI,
it was created the first group
of 118 artworks,
then Napoleon arrived
and he seized everything.
But these works, after
the defeat of Waterloo,
returned here to the Vatican
and over time other acquisitions
were made,
let's say there was
an enrichment of masterpieces
which are today
a truly extraordinary collection.
In these rooms, 18 rooms,
are kept well 500 paintings,
often absolute masterpieces.
Five hundred works are not many,
compared to other collections
or Italian or foreign galleries,
but what here
is really impressive
is the quality of these masterpieces.
In effect they were made
by the greatest Italian
artists from the Middle Ages
to the nineteenth century
And so we move from a room to
the other, following this thread
of creativity, oestrus,
quality of the artworks.
Inside this building
you can admire artworks
by Giotto, Raphael,
Leonardo or even Veronese.
But now we want to concentrate on
another work,
the famous
"The Entombment of Christ," by Caravaggio.
It is interesting to see how
the great Lombard painter
represented a subject, drawing on
Michelangelo's "Pieta",
in the figure of Christ,
as well as an echo of Raffaello's work
the "Transport of Christ in the Sepulchre"
located at the Galleria Borghese,
in Perugia.
Caravaggio's works rival with
Michelangelo's ones,
and his name was the same: Michelangelo...
Caravaggio conceived a kind of
sculptural group painting,
in fact, on the stone
Sepulchre turned as a corner
there is a massing of figures
that makes
a real sculpture group, and in
center there's Christ,
with his leaning arm
which has a symbolic value,
in fact the finger of Christ
touches the stone
the cornerstone
mentioned in the Holy Writ.
It is a clear the reference to
the rejected stone
that will become the cornerstone of
the Church
and then here is represented
the whole Church,
the early Church born
in the sacrifice of Christ,
the Sacrifice which alludes
the Resurrection.
We see the praying figures,
there is the figure of the Virgin
who opens her arms to form a cross,
alluding precisely to the
Christ's Death,
there is the figure of Mary of Cleophas,
who raises her hands up,
as the Scripture,
the New Testament,
the Psalms say;
she raises her hands up, as
Christians were represented
in the first-century
in the catacombs with praying.
It is a double movement and then
the depth is there, isn't it?
The death is darkness
however, the plant that is there
alludes to the Resurrection.
That is an evergreen plant,
a "candelaria"
and its representation, fully explained,
has the meaning of The Resurrection
Symbolic references and
artistic references too
show that Caravaggio
was a cultured artist
and not a rude, uncultured, rebellious man
that literature, in particular the Romantic
literature, passed on us...
Of course, Caravaggio was
a rebellious character,
and this is a fundamental point
to understand his personality,
and that black legend that
depicts Caravaggio as crazy and evil
just going around
to make murders and
strange things is
totally misrepresented.
Actually he was a character
with great spirituality.
The beauty of art history is
like a maze, you enter and you find
references, suggestions:
when you look at a painting
is like, in a sense, to
look at all the pictures
because inside an author,
inside a work, you can see
the artists who came before him,
who contributed
of his education,
and were near to him
in his evolution...
it's like they even talk
inside the artwork.
This is the beauty of our job.
The work of art itself is
purely relative,
but what's the meaning of "relative"?
This means that it is
relating to everything:
the artwork is related to the master
that has painted it,
it is related to the customer
who commissioned it,
it is in relation to the culture of
its time.
The Vatican Pinacoteca gives us
these extraordinary opportunities
to reflect about all this.
We visited
the history of the Vatican Museums
its incredible collections,
its masterpieces,
and we've found out how all this
is actually the result of
centuries
and the love
for the sense of beauty.
Now we are
in a meaningful place,
the Pigna Courtyard,
and right here, in
evening openings
take place many cultural
initiatives or concerts,
as a proof that the Vatican Museums
are not a enclosed space,
a static place
which holds the past
but a living structure,
an open structure,
open to innovation,
new languages, open to the future.
And this will be the theme
of our next stage.
we're going to find out the
Modern Art collections.
and also we will enter places
where the public usually does not get in.