Day 12- The Vatican

Happy St. Agnes' Feast Day!

Today we spent the entire day at the Vatican. I have a lot of notes so I will be summarizing what went on as best I can, but be warned that there is a lot of information!

The first thing we did was go on a tour of the Scavi underneath the Vatican (remember Scavi means excavations). Our tour guide talked really fast and so I have like 8 pages of notes from her talk. Later I found out she was from Minnesota and I realized why she talked so fast! Haha!

Here goes: The Vatican gets it name from the land, the Vatican Hill and the Vatican Valley (P.S. The land is now mostly flat… getting to that later). St. Peter's Basilica is on top of the land that was originally the Circus of Nero. This was where Peter would have been martyred and he was buried on the Vatican Hill. The obelisk in the center of the piazza out front was from the center of the circus but was moved from it's original place (which was across from the Scavi office).

During the time of the emperor Hadrian a pagan cemetery was built up in the area (although Christian family members were also buried there). We saw this thing called the Trophy of Gius (trophy meaning victory and used to decorate the graves of martyrs). Gius, a prominent Christian mentioned in Romans 16:23, built a trophy over St. Paul and St. Peter's grave sites (during the time of Marcus Aurelius). The trophy is at a strange angle to the grave (approx. 110 degrees) which is evidence that it was built after the grave itself, and the bricks are stamped with Marcus Aurelius' stamp.

One of the first things we saw an in the Scavi was an Egyptian Mausoleum which had the God of Horus and the Ankh (a T with an oval on the top that looks like a cross) which is an Egyptian sign for life. We do not know who was buried there because when Constantine built the first basilica in the area he built a 9 foot wide wall (and the length of a football field) over the entrance and ruined countless other tombs.

The Scavi is not a catacomb (which has and always will be underground), it is a Necropolis. (The pagan belief is that souls remained with the ashes and therefore the mausoleums are known as a Necropolis or dead city where the souls live. This is why the mausoleums are so beautiful and look like houses, to make the soul comfortable. The mausoleums had familial remains, some with up to 170 different people!) The Necropolis would have been at ground level.

Constantine had a dream where God told him to conquer with the Xi Rho symbol (X-P crossed) and so when he did conquer at the Milvian Bridge he started building churches with prominent figures graves underneath the altars. Since Peter was buried there, instead of moving the bones Constantine starts to deconstruct the hill and level the land. When he did this he buried the Necropolis and it was forgotten for a long time.

Ironically in the one solely Christian Mausoleum in the entire excavation had been discovered in 1574 when they were working on the floor of the basilica and a part collapsed into the mausoleum. However, it was normal for this to happen in other churches and so they filled it back in and it was forgotten again.

In 1939 Pope Pius XI was about to die he requested to be buried next to Pope Pius X. However there was no room so they started to dig, because you never deny a pope their last requests. When they started digging they found some mausoleums. However due to the political issues with Mussolini, the Vatican excavated in secret, by hand for 10 years.

Problem: When they were trying to excavate St. Peter's tomb they had a few issues. They could not get at it from all four directions!! They also could not get there from above. The only solution (which was not very well accepted) was to come in from the bottom. They found lots of evidence that this was the area, viewing hole, coins, etc. (also animal remains because that was where they disposed of the animals from the circus). Once they did get in the encountered another problem… Where were St. Peter's remains??

They found a tomb next to St. Peter's that is supposed to be St. Linus'. They also found a wall (called the graffiti wall because it has graffiti all over it). Inside the wall were 30 bone fragments that were remains of a man, from about 2000 years ago, about 60-70 years old at the time of death, of a robust build (possibly a fisherman), and there were no feet bones. Found him! Ironically, on the graffiti wall someone wrote "Peter is here" in Greek. (Sorry, like I said, I tried to summarize quickly...).

After the Scavi we went upstairs to St. Peter's Basilica. It took 120 years to complete the current basilica. It was designed by Michelangelo but he dies before it was completed. The canopy over the altar was created by Bernini. After walking in, immediately to the right was Michelangelo's Pieta where Mary is holding her son Jesus in her arms right after he had been taken down from the cross. It was the only work of Michelangelo that was signed.

Information dump: St. Peter's Basilica is the tallest dome in the entire world and 148 popes are buried in and around the basilica. The altar directly above St. Peter's tomb is reserved specifically for the pope. And there is an Italian tradition to touch the feet of Jesus on statues and sculptures.

Ok moving on… We went to the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Most of the Museum was interesting, but not a lot had to do with early church history, so I don't have a lot to say about it. However, I do have a lot to say about the Sistine Chapel (since the tour guide spent 45 minutes talking about it).

The Sistine Chapel was built in 1475 by Pope Sixtus IV. It is the pope's personal chapel and is entirely frescoed. It is used for conclave (deciding of the new pope). It was the first time ever that painting looked like architecture. Michelangelo took 53 months to complete his projects (and closed everyone out while he did it). After completing the work he had permanent physical problems after working on the ceiling.

The Last Judgment (behind the altar) has 410 people painted into it. It took 40 years to restore it fully (recent activity). Most of the people in the painting were nude (later people came in and painted clothing on them… how rude!) Pope John Paul II said that the fresco displayed the essence of the human body.

Funny Story: The judge of hell in the painting was the cardinal who chastised Michelangelo for not allowing anyone to see the painting and was saying bad thing about Michelangelo to others. After our tour, we went back to the Raphael Rooms and saw the painting by Rafael with Michelangelo front and center looking disgruntled. Quite Funny.

After that we climbed up to the top of St. Peter's Basilica dome and watched the sun set over Rome. It was beautiful! Although the climb was disorienting with leaning hallways and lots of spiral staircases. When we got back down we stopped by the gift shop and then headed towards Piazza Navona. We had dinner nearby and then stopped by La Botticella for a drink before heading back to the hotel to sleep.