Belated photographs from St. Peter’s and the Vatican Museum

Here are a few pictures from St. Peter’s and the Vatican Museum, especially the Raphael Rooms, on our trip to Rome in February.

St. Peter’s

St. Luke very high up in the central cupola — taxing my pont-n-shoot’s capabilities.

The guilded interior of the dome of St Peter’s

Coming down a little there are numerous inlaid marble columns

Like most of the “paintings” in St. Peter’s, this, St. Jerome’s Last Communion, is a mosiac.

Of course, St. Peter would feature prominently. (I have omitted the Pieta, which is the most famous sculpture in St. Peter’s)

There are several attractive floor vents, well polished by the shoes of the faithful.  This was about 1.2 m wide.

 The Vatican Museum

The Hall of Maps — a very long corridor with maps of different regions of hte world on the walls between the windows.  No doubt Popes paced this walk and studied the maps with very secular concerns.

Details from the ceiling.

Raphael’s gorgeous transfiguration had an uncrowded room all to itself.

Two decorative ceilings

Here are some images from one of Raphael’s four rooms (this one is Stanza della Segnatura).

Two views of the ceiling–together covering the whole.

The School of Athens is a Who’s Who of  Greek leaning.  Below are Plato and Aristole (top left), Diogenes (reclining on the steps) and Archimedes or Euclid (bottom right drawing with a compass).  The man with dark hair in the bottom right is thought to be Rapahel himself.

In the centre foreground is Michelangelo, easily recognised from his trademark boots.

The seated figure with  abook is Pythagoras.  On the left edge is Epicurus holding a plate.