June 2015 - The Vatican
The Vatican museum: A great collection in an even better space. The real treasure is the Sistine chapel (no photos). There's some other great stuff though, from ancient Sumerian tablets to early Christian art to Renaissance masterpieces.
The Vatican museum: A great collection in an even better space. The real treasure is the Sistine chapel (no photos). There's some other great stuff though, from ancient Sumerian tablets to early Christian art to Renaissance masterpieces.
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| The magnificent dome rising over the Vatican | The wall around the Vatican | Entering the Vatican |
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| The Vatican museum | Long hallways with room after room of painting and sculpture | The museum courtyard |
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| An Egyptian lion | Lovely Egyptian columns | A hallway full of the largest tapestries I've ever seen |
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| A remarkable ceiling in the hall of maps | The mark of the dragon pope | Roman marble all over the place |
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| A mosaic elephant, I'm guessing by someone who had never seen an elephant in real life | The raising of Lazarus in some 4th century Christian art | 4th century Christian decorated oil lamps |
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| Nativity sequences from the 4th century, from the sides of early Christian sarcophagi | ||
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| A room full of statues of everyday animals | A hallway full of statues and heads of statues | |
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| A statue with blue glass eyes, really striking | Another statue with glass eyes | A beautiful sarcophagus |
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| A room of statues | Very few bronze statues survived the dark ages - this Hercules is one of them. | Mosaic floor |
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| The dome | More floor mosaic | An adorable statue from the Egypt collection |
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| I would love to live in a world where these guys are walking around town | Sumerian cuniform tablets, from 2000 B.C. | I don't think I've seen much art of Peter's crucifixion |
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| I love this nativity | A very colorful annunciation, Palmezzano's Annunciation with City by the Sea | A panel with my favorite icon, St. George slaying the dragon |
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| I'm pretty sure he would've chosen a different haircut if he'd known people would be looking at it for hundreds of years | The Garden of Eden, _jam_ packed with animals | Raphael's Transfiguration, this picture couldn't possibly do it justice |