Vatican Museum concluded

After shuffling out way out of the Sistine Chapel, we wandered another long hall back to the main body of the museum, this one filled with various religious architecture. Finally we found are way to the Pinacoteca, the Vatican art gallery. The rooms are ordered chronologically, and the works are almost strictly of a religious nature, whether they be grand paintings of biblical scenes or representations of  the various saints. The works range from the 12th to the 19th centuries and include several works by Raphael, the most impressive of which is The Transfiguration whose vivid colors shine in a dark room. Among the other authors to be found here are Giotto, Bellini, Caravaggio, Titian, Guido Reni, Bernini, and an unfinished St. Jerome by da Vinci.  Also of interest, though the name is less well known to me, is Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, by Peter Wenzel, which shows a rather whimsical scene with flora and fauna from the world over.

The Transfiguration

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden

From the Pinacoteca, we wound our way through the Pio-Clemento museum. Roman statues peered down at us from crimson niches, as we shuffled past, circling the roman mosaics set in the floor, cordoned off by velvet ropes, and finally into the octagonal courtyard, filled with still more roman sculptures.

After the courtyard we moved into the Egyptian Museum. This museum contains a decent collection of hieroglyph marked stelae, Egyptian statues,  a few mummies, and some bronze votives. Of these, the statues and busts were the most impressive, several good quality pieces as well as a few very interesting pieces that show the Romanization of Egyptian gods, such as the toga adorned Anubis. Of particular interest to me where the final rooms of the exhibit which were not Egyptian, but which contain tablets written in cuneiform, the oldest of all writing forms , and also Assyrian artwork.

Finally, were were done with the museum, and ready to head to the Vatican itself. So we exited by the famous double helix staircase, whose two spirals once allowed guests to both enter and exit this way, but now it is used only as an exit.