Kay here, jumping in for the second day of Vatican touring as Dan caught an unfortunate stomach bug (which I caught about a week later) and was down for the count for about 36 hours. I headed off to the Vatican and offered the extra ticket to a young man standing in line (with the clear instruction that I then wanted to tour alone).
I was disappointed for Dan that we’d saved the ‘big ticket items’ for the second day, but I know he had a better time sleeping than looking at masterworks in the moment. He was happy enough to look at pictures and get a recap from me. And spoiler alert: he was fine the next day and we went back to adventuring at a furious pace.
So Vatican Day 2: A gorgeous outdoor sculpture garden, the Pio-Clementino Museum with sculptures of the nine muses, amongst others, Gallery of Maps, Gallery of Tapestries, Raphael Rooms, Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art (wow, wasn’t expecting that!), and of course, drum-roll, the Sistine Chapel. Side story here: I’ve been to the Vatican museum before with my mom and sister about 15 years ago and by the time we got to the Sistine Chapel I collapsed on a bench, completely overdone, and just ‘checked it off the list’. Lesson learned. At the Louvre, I knew to take two days and see the Mona Lisa first. Same this trip, two days at the Vatican, and I spent well over an hour in the Sistine Chapel, and truly savored the many masterworks there. No photos allowed, but I did get to witness a young man get down on bended knee and propose to his sweetie (second time this trip, also saw it at the Trevi Fountain!). I’ll pull a couple of chapel images from the web to include below.
My highlight moment, however, came when I arrived at one of the rooms after the Sistine Chapel, and there was a Vatican priest set up at a little table with a placard saying “Talk about art and faith.” Well, I’ve been working on my ‘Lady of a Thousand Faces’ series, have spent three months looking closely at the patriarchal repression of woman in/through art and religion (and joyously celebrating when finding moments of goddess and nature cultures seeping through), and the Marian cult has just been soundly chastised by the new pope. I was not prepared for a delightful, insightful, thought-provoking and supportive conversation with a Vatican priest. He spoke of nature, grace, errors of the Church and the importance of recognizing our mistakes, and how my intention when approaching my art is key. He gave me hope.
