1 Campidoglio
2 Castel Sant'Angelo
3 Colosseum (Colosseo)
4 Palazzo Barberini
5 Pantheon
6 Piazza Navona
7 Roman Forum (Foro Romano)
8 San Clemente
9 Sistine Chapel & Vatican Museums
10 St Peter's (San Pietro)
Michelangelo's masterpiece is one of today's wonders of the world, fittingly reached via the rooms of one of the world's greatest art collections.
Before reaching the Sistine Chapel you will have to walk for about 20 minutes through the corridors of the Vatican Museums. There is far too much to be absorbed in one visit, but you can select one of several recommended timed routes to see a selection of the highlights. There are: the Museo Gregoriano-Egizio Egyptian collection; the Museo Chiaramonti collection of Roman sculpture; the Museo Pio Clementine, whose classical sculptures include the Belvedere Apollo and Lacoön and his sons being strangled by snakes; the Museo Gregoriano-Etrusco collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan art; corridors of tapestries by Pieter van Aelst based on Raphael cartoons; and corridors lined with 16th-century maps of each of the Italian regions, which lead to the Raphael Rooms.
There are four Raphael Rooms, painted between 1508 and 1525 (the last finished by Giulio Romano after Raphael's death in 1520). In the first room the subjects are metaphysical, including the famous School of Athens in which many of Raphael's contemporaries are portrayed as Greek philosophers and poets. The second room shows biblical and early Christian events. The third room portrays significant events in papal history, and the final room illustrates the story of Constantine. From here the tour proceeds to the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512, crouching for hours on the scaffolding as Pope Julius II chivvied him on from below. A thorough cleaning in the 1980s and 1990s, during which some of the garments that more puritanical popes had had painted on to Michelangelo's scantily clad biblical figures were stripped off along with the dust and grime, restored the original vibrant colours. The ceiling tells the story of the Creation, in which a pink-clad God nips around dividing light from darkness and water from land before going on to create the sun, the moon, Adam and Eve. The last four panels show the birth of original sin and the story of Noah. On the chapel's end wall is Michelangelo's much later Last Judgement. By the time he started this in 1534 he was racked with ill-health and pessimistic thoughts of his own mortality, and it took him until 1541 to complete. The flayed skin held up by St Bartholomew (to Christ's left) is believed to be a self-portrait, while the diabolical figure in the bottom right-hand corner is a portrait of the Pope's secretary, who disapproved of Michelangelo's naturalistic handling of this sacred subject. The other walls of the chapel were painted with episodes from the lives of Christ and Moses by, among others, Botticelli, and Perugino. Beyond the chapel are: the Vatican library with over one million valuable volumes, many dating from the Middle Ages; a gallery of modern religious art including works by Klee, Munch and Picasso; and collections of pagan and early Christian antiquities. It is definitely worth going into the Pinacoteca (picture gallery) which has a marvellous collection of medieval, Renaissance and baroque art including masterpieces by most of the most famous names in European art of the periods.Address: Viale Vaticano
Phone: Vatican tourist office: 06 6988 4947/6988 3333
Open: Easter to mid-Jun, Mon-Fri 8:45-4:45, Sat 8:45-1:45. Rest of year, Mon-Sat 8:45-1:45. All year, last Sun of month 8:45-1:45pm
Restaurant: Choice of restaurants and bars (Inexpensive)
Bus: 23, 49, 81, 492, 907, 991 to Piazza del Risorgimento
Metro: Ottaviano
Accessible: Good
Admission: Expensive but it covers a lot; free last Sun of month
Practical: Guided tours available in a number of languages
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