Volume 14 Number 103 Vatican Museums II Lead: One of The

Volume 14 Number 103 Vatican Museums II

Lead: One of the world's greatest art collections was inaugurated by Pope Julius II five hundred years ago with the purchase of a white marble statue of an ancient Trojan priest, Laocoon.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Within the walls of Vatican City is a group of connected buildings collectively known as the Vatican Palace. This complex houses several museums and galleries, a vast library, and the departments and administrative offices of the Papal bureaucracy. Since the time of Pope Julius, at the beginning of the 1500s, however, popes have also commissioned and purchased the finest art work, from antiquity to the Renaissance to modern religious art for Vatican collection. The finest architects and artists of the Italian Renaissance designed the buildings and filled the interiors with statuary, rich ornamentation and frescoes. At the center of Vatican City is St. Peter's Basilica. It can hold 60,000 people and was constructed with significant contributions by Bramante, Raphael, Bernini, and Michelangelo. Perhaps, the greatest artistic treasure is Michelangelo’s -- the frescoes on the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

The Vatican Library, which is the oldest public library in Europe dating to the fifteenth century, holds 75,000 historical and religious manuscripts and 1.1 million books. The Vatican Archives are a separate collection holding 150,000 documents. Included in library’s holdings are the world’s oldest Bible, which dates to the fourth century, copies of St. Peter’s letters, love letters that Henry VIII wrote to Ann Boleyn, and the petition from the English Parliament to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In October 2006, on the 500th anniversary of the Library, it was announced that the newly discovered Roman necropolis at the Vatican would be open to the public.

Celebrating a decade and a half of public history on A Moment in Time, at the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

Resources

Brigstocke, Hugh, ed. The Oxford Companion to Western Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Coppa, Frank J., ed. Encyclopedia of the Vatican and Papacy. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999.

Mcdowell, Bart. Inside the Vatican. Washington D.C.: National Geographic, 2005.

Vatican City State. 20 October 2008 .

“Vatican Info.” Road to Italy. 10 October 2008 .