Tales from the Chapel (and other ruminations of Rome)

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First and foremost, I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, or really, a happy holiday of their choosing! A brand new year is here (thank goodness!), but while I’m a ways past the travels I’ve written about here, my work and thoughts on and about this study abroad in Italy are far from running dry. I feel as if I can ‘complete’ my main entries about each part of the trip with this entry, though, for we’re now at Rome. All roads may indeed lead to Rome, but my trip finished up here, and we flew out from Leonardo DaVinci airport near the city in the early hours of July 20, 2007. I could say so very much about what I really loved or can’t wait to get back to, and of course, what all I have left to see in Italy. But as I wrap up all of those entries that I surely didn’t have time to do (properly) while back in country, I’ll focus on some of the experiences that were prominent in terms of “you had to be there.” I mean, I was! :-)

Among all of the observations of Rome, I think that staying near the Pantheon caused me to say, “it doesn’t look real!” That was part of my group’s thinking in Venice, sure, but after being in a drowsy state to unload at our hotel, climb up countless stairs to reach the room, figuring out the door lock for some time, and wandering over to dinner with the others our first night, I knew that I needed to snap back into it and appreciate what I was seeing. I walked around with a few of our ‘fearless leaders’ on the second night, and we saw a few piazzas and the people that were out among the street performers and the sellers of light-up toys and little clickers and so on. We stopped by a little grocery store and so on, and as one or two of the program leaders and friends re-acclimated themselves with Rome and the streets that they had come to know (and that I wanted to know), I was unprepared for the stepping into sight of the Pantheon. We entered the piazza from the back right corner, and there is was, laying before us across another square and obselisk mounted in the middle, fountain in tow. The building was lit in a certain way that made it look slightly ancient and a different color of brown from any building around us, but I immediately liked the effect of it not exactly being congruent with the buildings that bordered the street-like walkways that ran along both sides.

We were also passing through a piazza that hosted a McDonald’s, café style. The McDonald’s that sold beer, I was told. A few great gelato places were around the square nearby (one of them a group favorite), but my night was made by seeing the great tall doors of the Pantheon, the looming presence it commanded at night, dark and theatrical, the Latin phrase across the middle making it a vibrant, current structure still. Then there was the fact that it had stood since about 126 A.D. I practically just blinked when I first laid eyes upon it. We would visit it again the next day, and I would have to move around inside to view the tombs of Raphael and Victor Emmanuel and to gaze up at the oculus, but at night, I found the Pantheon (and Rome’s major sights) to have a little something extra. I had a goal of seeing most of them at night and during the day, but since that didn’t happen, I made sure that I tossed enough coins in the Trevi Fountain to ensure a few returns!

Some sights are indeed crowded, so I won’t dispel that fact of travel for Rome in the summer, yet many are still worth that trip on the Metro, that walk across a few streets heavy with cars and Vespas, or a few buses and a long day of walking to see points A, B, and C. The Trevi Fountain may be one such place, each bench-like tier for sitting or watching the fountain being clogged with tourists, but neither that nor the renovations of the Fountain of the Four Rivers discouraged me from stopping to examine and photograph these staples of a ancient city that appeared to be very much alive (in my opinion, and with a mind that had passages of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons running through it at times).

Some of our major sights were the Modern Art Museum and the Borghese, plus the Coliseum, the Vatican, and a variety of smaller but famous churches (seeing Bernini’s work at nearly every turn, as I had hoped), but I had a ball with the waiters and a lunch experience on day with a majority of the group. That was a day when we could choose our afternoon, and when we would be making our way over to the Coliseum (a program coordinator got our tickets and passed this go-round, saying she had seen it enough times for now). On Coliseum day, I stopped for another fountain (a theme I enjoyed in Rome) on the Via Vento, this having a large shell around a somewhat modest pool. I may have been back to see the hallway of bones (it is something to see a novelty attraction that is basically the many bones of monks in interesting shapes) and the Hard Rock Café, but my day off to wander around included several wrong buses and what probably turned out to be miles of me trekking the area by foot.

I may have had more gelato and then some pizza at a place with a little bar to sit on (among a lot of pasta combinations that reminded me of some kind of gift shop with a pizza parlor), and I may have wandered around a park in the northern part of town to suddenly find myself walking down into the Piazza del Popolo, but, the Spanish Steps and the Mouth of Truth were seen. And, whether or not one may find good discoveries of just feeling their way around Rome, be prepared for the heat if doing so in July!
Now that I’ve mentioned Bernini, the fountains and a lot of the sites that any travel writer, student, or visitor needs to get themselves to in Rome, let me see if I can’t take you into the Vatican when I was there in July. Perhaps this way you can avoid the long lines and the guards that can probably spot a camera in your bag with X-ray vision. Where would this be a most sticky situation? Well, probably when you first get into the Vatican Museums and want to see Michelangelo’s best departure from sculpture to painting ever. The Sistine Chapel, or “Cappella Sistina,” has since been an object that many can only view in countless books and other reproductions. As a first-time visitor to the Vatican and the home of the Chapel, I knew that any seasoned traveler and respectful tourist had willingly, even if not happily, put away the camera for the sake of preservation in such museums and world-renown places. We know the drill: buy the postcard instead, maybe take some notes on the details that wouldn’t normally spring to mind in thinking on this place later, tell people that you were there through a picture of yourself outside the sacred place, etc.

Yet while being a respectful visitor can be managed, isn’t it still a bit strange to know that someone now has a copyright on pictures of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling? And they do because they paid to restore it, finishing in 1989? This goes above and beyond not having one’s own pictures; if your fellow tourist is taking one anyway, he or she is “stealing” from the Nippon Television Network of Tokyo.

During my study abroad with the Augusta State University students, the program coordinators, and friends and family members of the program coordinators, I learned of this new restriction. The fact that we would be allowed to look, sketch, but not photograph or even lay down was reinforced; I was almost dreading the moment when I entered the legendary place. I figured that I would have to take copious notes and find the best postcards possible. At least, for the Vatican’s main ‘attraction.’ Otherwise, I’m sure St. Peter’s and other elements of the “smallest country in the world” could be worth seeing too!

After our two-hour wait for the Vatican museums, the metal detectors, escalator leading up to the first level, and actually, the small airport terminal look it had going on was welcome. I could immerse myself in the endless rooms and corridors of art, getting around to the Chapel before we had to meet up at the end of the day. I would take my time in allowing my eyes to take in as many of Michelangelo’s scenes and figures as I could, and I would await (with interest) the reactions of the art students I was traveling with. Some of them basically wanted to just see that room (or really, what was painted all around and on the ceiling inside) and maybe one other sight in Rome.

I weighed my options as we began to separate at the escalator. One of the program coordinators, art professor and lover of all things Michelangelo, probably had the Chapel in her head for some time; I wouldn’t be surprised if she had been impatiently counting the days and weeks leading up to this visit, and this particular trip (out of 10 or so total). I found out that that was exactly where she was going first. Quickly, I decided to join her. If anything, I could get the “don’t touch, don’t do anything” ban on my Vatican experience over with.

My ‘fearless leader’ and her husband, the fellow program coordinator, came up the escalator. Her teenage son and her husband’s mother (both along for this ride, and the one that was our trip!) were also to make the trek. For a few minutes there I thought we would all be together, the program coordinator’s friend (and a judge) being sure to match ‘fearless leader’s’ stride, and one of the students being up for the Chapel right off the bat. Yet the long rooms began: paintings, the “map room” (of nearly wall-to-wall paintings of older maps, some with locales I’d never be able to recognize without a knowledgeable source beside me), the vases and the distracting views of Michelangelo’s dome from open windows. The other challenge of journeying to the Chapel is to brave the hordes of people moving, or really not moving, through a maze of art unlike any I had laid eyes upon in other museums.

Two in our little party soon decided to take it more slowly. I think that they had planned this, or else, simply gone with what they had done in past trips. The Michelangelo enthusiast and ‘fearless leader’ was the kind of visitor that would stay in the Chapel until the guards “kicked her out,” she liked to say, so she was fine with anyone else meeting up with her later. Her husband, mother-in-law, and son were all there with her, but they worked it out to enjoy parts of the museums separately, having lunch and coffee a little later. As I went around with them for most of the day, this little family unit didn’t have to search for each other, break out the walkie-talkies they had, or dial a group member’s global phone to find out exactly which part of the cafeteria or what gift shop everyone was in.

Seeing a pattern in our beeline to the Chapel, I had become much better at finding openings between people, ways to step around an entire tour group (while they were still the bane of my existence at times), and means to gently, but firmly, push by still more people. I kept up with ‘fearless leader,’ her son (who could definitely hold his own if he wanted to maintain all of the personal instruction that his mother could give him on all kinds of art), and the student and the judge, but after a little while, I was thinking that it was likely someone’s grand joke to have the Chapel this far away from where we had come in.

Signs kept telling us that we were going the right way, but I knew that I didn’t need them as long as I kept my eyes fixed on the one best suited to command this mission, and occasionally, the ground to find a place to step on as I power-walked. After a few more rooms and one with the art appearing more random that I would have thought, I felt as if we were in a Monty Python sketch.

“The signs may as well have things written on them like ‘You’ll be at the Sistine Chapel in five minutes,’ then ‘Oh, about 3 and one-half minutes now,’ then ‘Well, you’re closer, but no, you’re not there yet!’ I said to one group member, and he laughed, probably seeing a new angle on the trip (for this wasn’t some people’s first time there) in making this small journey with a fresh set of faces. I never got the number of times that he had been to the Vatican, but his tours of Italy had begun in the early 70’s. I imagined that our judge and ‘friend of the program coordinator’ there had probably been in the Chapel when pictures were a little more easily sneaked. Or when more people came to the Vatican with the desire to see the sights with just their own eyes instead.

The rooms began to remind me of the intricate, stately and almost overdone (to someone who lives in an apartment) passages of the Palace of Versailles in France. We were encountering fewer people on the whole, but the volume was still going in our same direction. A few more rooms, and then, suddenly, we stopped.

We were up a level, still able to see great views out of the open windows, but we were not, in fact, in the Sistine Chapel. We had stopped to examine and take in Raphael’s The School of Athens. This work was truly worth noting, and our small contingent took up one of the few benches in the room. The atmosphere was not reverent, and it was not boisterous, but I still felt as if we were trying to take in a Renaissance master (and all of the figures we were to find above, from Aristotle to all the poets, writers, and musicians on a far wall) while standing still in a corner of New York City’s Union Station.

Our group took its time, finding other familiar faces from our study abroad program that eventually joined us as we rested from the Great Vatican Museums Marathon. The time was inching on towards the lunch hour, however, so I knew that the others would soon be turning to the Holy Grail of Chapels, and in a way, the sacred room that I felt tested us as to our devotion; the length to get to it may make you want to see it that much more!

We moved on. It was not long after that when the doorway no larger than any given one in my apartment appeared ahead of us. As I learned later on when finding and entering famous Roman piazzas or attractions, the sounds of people moving, speaking, and congregating would easily give away whatever sight or destination I was seeking in taking that path. And so, we finally came upon the Sistine Chapel.
It was almost as if a section of St. Mark’s Square in Venice (where we had been a few weeks prior) had been taken out, totally re-shaped, remodeled and made as a gorgeous room of figures and scenes in art, and then, most importantly, been completed by all the dozens of pigeons. Only, these pigeons had turned into the tourists that flanked the walls and floor space.

The ‘fearless leader’ that had led us to our goal wasn’t kidding when she said that you could be trampled if you sat down on the floor. We ran into more of the others that must have also survived the ‘Oregon Trail’ of the Vatican as we made our way across the room. After this methodical move to the scarce seats on a bench that had a thick plastic sheet up behind it, shielding any of the wall that a tourist could physically reach, I thought, “Well, this is it. Take it in, and see if it’s describable to anyone else.”

I made sure to look at the floor that we were on as we entered, and to notice that this was actually a kind of platform, the steps to our left being akin to the altar in other chapels slightly less famous than this one. People weren’t allowed to sit on these steps, but I soon understood the average visitor’s need for seating anywhere, any way possible. As we drew into the ‘room’ and down the slight incline from the raised level to the Chapel’s floor, it struck me as interesting how humble our entrance door had been. This regular doorway (now behind us) was the main entrance that everyone would use to squeeze into the bustling chapel? I guess it showed how this homage to great art did start out as a nice chapel for the Vatican. The tourist attraction role just came later, I suppose, then! After all, reverence was required here.
I waited for the clapping and the “No pictures!” mantra that the guards were to say (according to ‘fearless leader,’ who said she would gladly help them out and take a turn doing the same), and eventually, it came. “Silencio” is the other word you will hear if you spend any time in the Chapel, and as with anything shouted by those in authority, the people within hearing range did heed the command. Or, most everyone packed in there become quieter, allowing for those that entered later to get the same ground rules at regular intervals. I remember a few signs, but unlike my imaginary ones telling us how far we had left to hike to the Chapel, there were not so many around the outside or inside. It makes sense, yet that likely means that the guards get a lung or palm-to-palm work out each day.

I didn’t have our Michelangelo and Sistine Chapel expert right beside me for the first-timers lecture and pointing out of things around our little group, for she was trying to talk to some of the others a little ways down on the bench we were sitting on. And despite what the guards tell everyone, there was still a fair amount of noise—we didn’t bring our whisper system headsets to hear ‘fearless leader’ talk for something as massive as all of the Vatican. I did get to hear a little about the panels representing biblical stories on the walls, though, for along with being familiar with many of them, I had ‘fearless leader’s’ husband to spread his knowledge of the Chapel; he had been there several times himself now, having helped lead this program. Towards the end of our group’s day touring the Vatican, after walking into and taking in the Chapel twice, I realized that I sat been sitting on the same side each time. When I visit this site again, I really should try and get a good look at the wall that I had rested my back against. To my left and around and over the door that we entered in from, I did take in all of The Last Judgment. That was unobstructed, mostly, and with its share of who was painted in unfavorably (a definite good story from ‘fearless leader’s’ husband), but we must get to the obvious here: the ceiling.

A few observations I had were ones I politely kept to myself. I was impressed, sure, but I felt like I was in between seeing this as a let-down and as the single most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. I will try my best to talk of its features, for again, I have no pictures that I can add to my narrative here! For one, many of the figures above were larger than I had thought. There was a purpose in that, I knew, and how cracks in the artwork had been “painted in” by Michelangelo, but still, in looking over a group member’s shoulder at various books on the Vatican that morning, I was wondering if some of those photographs were just a bit too dramatic for what one had to see in person to really grasp. Books could provide a refresher on where we were at that moment, but I realized that I hadn’t taken as much time to look at pictures of the ceiling before that day. This would be where a course or two in art history would probably make me sure that the real thing was far better than it looked in books. I looked from one side of this ceiling to the other, mostly now finding myself impressed instead that anyone could have the patience to do work on such a canvas.

I think that that mere thought barely scratches the surface of the reasons why Michelangelo is a genius, however. I pondered the very center of the work, of Adam reaching out his hand to God, most of all. Perhaps I was gravitating towards that section, and as I ran through the images I had seen of the Chapel before now, I also pinpointed this part as the one I had seen in several different ways (in lieu of the entire ceiling). A few places looked “busy,” and still others had figures with limbs large enough to notice without use of binoculars. I had the Sistine Chapel in mind as the main reason why I had brought such a viewing device on the trip, and of course, I did not have them on me that day.

I had since been deterred from attempting any sneaky camera angles or tricks to get some pictures after all, and as I watched others carelessly take them anyway, I could now raise myself up a little on the high horse of respecting the place, and the artist. I would be able to talk about being here, to remember walking through the marble screen that separated the front of the Chapel from the back, the altar area from the rest. Since I had scanned my mind for everything I associated with the Chapel as I sat there within its walls (including the election of the Pope, a tradition perfect for people’s travel stories or paperback novels), I tried to remember as much as possible about the place as we went through another nondescript door to the exit. I was curious to see what “matched up” in my head with the actual sight that was now registered.

Our lunch was at the Vatican’s cafeteria, and while the afternoon was spent seeing many other rooms (including the fascinating Egyptian ones, complete with the mummified bodies), some gardens, and passing by several postcard and book stands looking for the main gift shop (which I visited in a hurry after a real connection with St. Peter’s cathedral), I felt as though I had breezed through the Chapel. Since I had started out with it, I could say that I spent time observing it initially, but as we headed back through to exit the Vatican museums in the late afternoon, I found out that that we would be “dumped,” basically, into that very place. From there the crowds were moved on towards St. Peter’s, and that, I was told, would stay open until six o’clock.

So, I had a second chance with the Chapel, and a little more face time. This was ‘fearless leader’s’ chance to truly wait out the guards until she could not remain a moment longer. It seems that her husband and his mother weren’t in a hurry either; I entered with them and we all snatched bench space as it became available. I had to share some of mine with a child that was sitting near his family, for he and I saw the space open at the exact same time. Back on the same side of the Chapel that I had been on earlier, I discovered a disturbing about-face about the afternoon viewing of the Chapel and its ceiling: visitors were taking photos (most with the flash) like the Chapel was to be demolished the next day. In talking about this spectacle later, our ‘judge’ and group member, a respectful visitor without a camera out all the time, remarked, “It was like the Fourth of July!” The guards were not halting all of this as it kept happening before my eyes. Finally, after a little while, we heard the tone sound firmly around the Chapel, and again, like before, a recording sent over speakers somewhere went through the ‘don’ts’ of the Chapel in several languages.

That still didn’t do much, especially if I, the one refraining from photographing everything, was finding it hard to hold back as well. I even left the square for the bus ride back to the hotel feeling like I needed to be back in St. Peter’s Square, taking even more photos. Yet, beyond gawking and mindlessly taking more pictures for some album or website, I wished to be near the cathedral itself. While I did not get to devote as much time to this memorizing place as other visitors have, perhaps, I could relive what its very presence was like; I had photographic evidence, and one little video. For the Sistine Chapel, it was the opposite. As I got ready to leave the Chapel and be fed into St. Peter’s (handily avoiding the line and metal detector the first time, I might add), my situation was akin to just sitting on my hands. ‘Fearless leader’s’ mother-in-law experienced the same frustration, so along with taking the Chapel in with our eyes and touching what we were allowed to touch, we assumed the right to glare or look down upon the shutter-happy flock standing in the middle. What’s worse, many of these cretins may not even recognize what their stolen photographs really are as they look at them months from now.

I couldn’t continue to sit there as I finished out my look at the Chapel, so after I was about done trying to savor it, a new thought finally occurred to me. I must continue to hone my skills as a travel writer anywhere, for I wonder why I had not employed some sort of technique that they would have thought of in this situation. Instead of my camera lenses for priceless objects, and ceilings, I would turn to another option that I carried around with me while seeing Italy for the first time: the audio recorder. That wasn’t against any rules (that I knew of!). My duty is to bring something like the Sistine Chapel to anyone that might hear or read about it after my trip; my need is to find other ways to accomplish this. I had to give some visuals (beyond fragments from postcards or the like) to friends and family initially, but I quickly figured out what I could be doing as a professional at this kind of thing as well.

I made up my thoughts and questions as I went, but as I talked to ‘fearless leader’s’ husband, I asked him to tell a story or two about the Chapel that would help someone who had never seen it before feel like they had. He had been there many times before, and he had an art professor at his side, here and in life. As I kept our discussion steered away from a real formal interview, I tried asking about some of his favorite stories emulating from the creation of the ceiling. This is where I got the insight that I spoke of earlier for various areas of the Chapel, for now I have the story on a figure painted in on The Last Judgment fresco. It seems that the real-life person depicted on this wall (in some sort of inferno and all things undesirable) had been an assistant of sorts to the Pope at the time, and he had wanted his likeness removed after discovering what Michelangelo had done. Pope Paul III had said that he had no control over that, but that he did have a better chance for control over heaven.

My questions with the audio recorder yielded insights on the curves in the corners of the Chapel, and how Michelangelo handled them. ‘Fearless leader’s’ husband talked about how the artist painted cracks intentionally in his work so that real cracks that would inevitably appear over the years wouldn’t be as noticeable. The myth that Michelangelo painted any of this grand masterpiece lying down was dissolved in my head that day. I knew that he had also meant to paint a lot of these figures larger because of the angle from which those of us below would see them. There were very few things my interviewee didn’t know about the Chapel, so as I cut off the recorder, I got ready to leave as a visual, descriptive, and satisfied travel writer. I could feel as if I was indeed working on collecting that “field research” that I had meant to gather from just about everyone in our group that summer.

For the Sistine Chapel, I did not get the luxury of a guide or the useful (even while annoying to others passing by) trappings of being in a tour group. In this hallowed place, though, I had the sound effects of the guards, the murmur of the crowd and how it got a little loud at times, the feeling of everything around me when it was reverent and quieter, and of course, my relayed stories on the work of the genius artist we all still admire. But that week in Rome got me (and the students) talking, passing around the recorder, and at last, utilizing it alongside the camera. Many experiences and unforgettable hours are made fresh again from my recordings, and even as I write this, the Chapel is made more vivid and tangible in my mind.

What I learned about the famed Chapel wasn’t squarely the facts that one would see stuck in a textbook either. I found out (as we waited outside St. Peter’s and tried to form our group again) from ‘fearless leader’ that one of the students (and the one that was with us that morning on our journey to see the Chapel first) had taken slips of paper and put them in the pockets of all those picture-takers. In effect, he had told them what they were helping to destroy in terms of the work above. Work that I know we had not seen the likes of anywhere else, nor would we see it through traveling anywhere else on earth.
The task of explaining it to someone, then, will likely not be so straightforward.

Maybe I’ve tried, and gone on and on about it too, but if a listener or a reader’s attention span is as long as the thought process I had when deciding whether or not to join the crew in the original quest for the Chapel, then I can’t help either person! As I broaden my horizons through travel, I’ll continue to talk about it and for this entry, simply what I brought from this Vatican locale. I would never have thought that part of seeing the Sistine Chapel was the experience of making it to Rome, and then through the Vatican, but that experience, in the end, is worth wrapping up my blog narratives on Italy with. On to placing all of this into an essay! :-) I’ll see if I can post later on to let you know how the final project turns out; I can finally just about see the end of that, so perhaps it will show that my experience this past summer will never go stale!

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Photos

Pantheon at night
A side view of one of the most impressive structures in Rome (up there with the Coliseum, I think).

I stand in this great 'church'
Inside the Pantheon (and my color scheme was indeed a good scheme that day...)

Fountain on the Via Veneto
It may be far smaller than the ones that command their own piazza, but in the traditions of fountains in Rome, so many are worth a click of the shutter.

The Spanish Steps
It took me a chunk of my free day to find this spot, but I finally did. I know I didn't take as much time as I could have to explore all of that area and take lots of photos, but then again, I have a regular laundry list of what to do next time "when in Rome." Not wasting time with taking the wrong bus or waiting at random bus stops is on there...

I only speak the truth...
Hepburn and Peck fan or not, this is a cool little attraction all by itself.

Bottled water--not so common in Italy
I bought this bottle from a street vendor...that was the most useful item that any of them around us sold (oh yes, please don't pay for any tours that these people offer you!). It was quite hot, and all before 9 or 10 a.m., really.

One stately entrance to the Vatican
We were entering (or about to) to one side, and this was seen somewhere over to our right. Our entrance was slightly less photogenic, but like I wrote in my entry, seeing the escalator and everything was good...it meant we could start actually seeing something besides those high walls!

Raphael's "School of Athens"
Somewhat recognizable, but something that I was allowed to photograph. Ah yes, my conscience could stay intact on this one! :-)

A golden hallway of sorts
This is just one view of the CEILING as we strolled through the Vatican Museums. I believe this was also after the infamous journey to the Chapel the first time, so I could pause for more photos (I was allowed to take them!).

At the throne of St. Peter
St. Peter's in the Vatican: purely amazing. At times it was akin to being in a movie. Or back in time via a special Delorean or something...

They do exist (along with their uniforms)!
These stately Swiss Guard fellows were spotted as I made my way around St. Peter's Square with a group member. We were looking for everyone else after the crowds were filtered into the cathedral and the Vatican museums were closing down for the day.

St. Peter's at night
Back to St. Peter's I went (as our trip was coming to a close), but only to the outside and the Piazza. It was all lovely still. This picture appeared in one of my earlier entries about Rome, so again, there is some material from when I was actually there to go on here too.