10 Giugno, 2011. Musei Vaticani.

Wow. I actually never knew that the Vatican had a museum inside it. It makes perfect sense, I guess it's just never occurred to me. Anyway, it is gigantic! We spent a good three hours (or so), and we really spent more time traveling between exhibits of interest than we did actually looking at the collection. And yet it felt like we barely scratched the surface of the massive collection. Saying that every inch of wall, ceiling, and floor was covered in various pieces of the collection would only be a very slight exaggeration. I suspect a thorough walkthrough of the entire complex would take at least a week.

The first thing we sought out was the Sistine Chapel, which, it turns out, was only accessible through what felt like a half mile of hallway, which was lined with tapestries. The slaughter of the innocents was the theme of some of these tapestries, meaning they depicted scenes of babies being stabbed, which wasn't as disturbing as it sounds; rather, I found the concept and execution of the whole thing rather ridiculous, and shared a good laugh about it with Dr. Sebastian.

The Sistine Chapel itself was honestly kind of a letdown, particularly after every other absurdly ornate church and museum we've visited so far. That's not to say it wasn't impressive; it was, very much so. But I guess it just didn't live up to the hype. Though Antonia was quick to point out that it was Michaelangelo's first painting gig, and I had to agree, that knowledge made it much more impressive.

Not to detract from any of the ancient/pre-modern art works (all of which I loved), but my favorite piece was actually a work by modern Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro, called Sfera. It's a gigantic golden sphere. It's apparently one of a series of similar gigantic metal spheres.

Unfortunately, after about two and a half hours in the museum, I was done with it. That is, done with looking at art. Of any kind. Just done. All I wanted to do was get something to eat and shut off my brain for the rest of the day (ideally for the next three days). I miss video games. I'll likely feel differently tomorrow, but for now I'm sick of cultural experiences. Just saying.