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Rome: Vatican City

Fri., August 25, 2006

Based on horror stories I’d accumulated from Rome-ing friends and coworkers, I feared pickpockets and ne’er-do-wells. I spent an inordinate amount of time shielding Dana’s bag from potential Vespa-borne snatchers. But the only busy hands we witnessed directly were outside the high walls of Vatican City where a tagteam of gypsies bum-rushed the American behind us in line; he stayed with the caller on his cellphone and said, “Hold on a sec; someone’s trying to steal my wallet.” Dana and I theorize we were spared such malfeasance in general because in certain light and stagings, we can appear vaguely non-American, as long as we keep our yaps shut and steer clear of McDonald’s. I think it’s the black plastic spectacle frames and our proclivity for “interesting” clothing.

The Vatican Museums comprise nearly a dozen interconnected small galleries or mini-museums, at the end of which is the Sistine Chapel, which, let’s face it, is the reason everyone’s there. Most of the comparatively minor stuff leading up to that iconic fresco gets the short shrift. As we hustled through with the other cattle, I was surprised to spot in the modern art gallery a few of Dali’s religious themed paintings, and especially one of Francis Bacon‘s more sedate papal portraits, still a strange pick for hardline Catholics. The artist usually painted a pontiff trapped in a transparent cube, head exploding in a gape-mouthed vertical smear. A scathing 1974 article in Time of the Vatican’s modern art holdings contained this well-put Bacon bit:

The only distinguished image of a Pope in the collection is one of Francis Bacon’s variations on Velásquez’s Innocent X. The gift of Italian Automobile Tycoon Gianni Agnelli, it sits, mouth open in a feral and silent snarl, glaring at the sacramental kitsch around it. But that it should be hung as "religious" art is unconscious black humor.

The Sistine Chapel is essentially a dim, high rectangular room packed with people shoulder-to-shoulder milling around like it’s the world’s quietest, slowest rave. From their vantage point on the steps leading up to the altar, guards shout NO PHOTO whenever they see a camera or a flash. Alternately, they shout SHHHH, which sounds impossible, but judging by the noisiness of the crowd, it’s something they’ve had lots of practice at. These interjections quash any epiphanies or grandeur you may plan to experience viewing Michelangelo’s masterpiece. You’ll be standing there, reverently contemplating God bringing life through the limp hand of Adam when suddenly SHHHH! NO PHOTO!! SHHHHHHH!

In the Vatican Museums cafeteria, we composed and mailed postcards to family. While waiting in line for lunch, Dana noticed the holy city peddles wine packaged in what appear to be children’s Tetra Pak juice boxes.

St. Peter's Basilica, exterior.

Back outside, we walked over to nearby St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s big. Really big. It holds 60,000 people and there’s likely enough airspace inside to fly around in one of those lightweight airplanes without knocking into anything. The Pietà, an eerie marble lump of disproportion, sits near the front doors in an alcove behind a floor-to-ceiling sheet of plastic to prevent further lunatic hammer attacks.

In the basement, nearly 100 popes are entombed. Everyone tried to cluster around Pope John Paul II‘s tomb, a simple white marble affair located not far from the site of St. Peter‘s alleged remains. A bouncer-like guard only gave everyone about 15 seconds facetime with the sarcophagus before shooing them on down the line.

Outside in the square, the clownishly clad Swiss Guard stand stoically with their lances as tourists photograph them from a distance. If they can help it, the only part of them that moves is their beady eyes.

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