Vatican City is a city-state surrounded by Rome, Italy, and serves as the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church. It is home to the Pope and a trove of iconic art and architecture. The Vatican Museums house ancient Roman sculptures, such as the famed ‘Laocoön and His Sons’ as well as Renaissance frescoes in the Raphael Rooms.
Encircled by a 2-mile border with Italy, Vatican City is an independent city-state that covers just over 100 acres, making it one-eighth the size of New York’s Central Park. Officially known as the Vatican City State, it is a landlocked independent city-state, microstate and enclave within Rome, Italy. This means, you can only get to the Vatican City through the Italian Capital, Rome.
It became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under “full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction” of the Holy See, as a sovereign entity of international law, which maintains the city state’s temporal, diplomatic, and spiritual independence.
After a one and half hour flight from the Maltese capital, Valletta, I arrived at the Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Rome. After collecting my luggage, I jumped into the next available taxi and made my way to my apartment, a five minutes’ walk from the Vatican City.
The next morning, I commenced my tour of the city of Rome – the capital city of Italy, which in 2019, was the 14th most visited city in the world with 8.6 million tourists, the third most visited city in the European Union, and the most popular tourist destination in Italy.
The city of Rome hosts several specialised agencies of the United Nations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The city also hosts the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) as well as the headquarters of many international businesses.
It was interesting to realise that several companies are based within Rome’s business district, such as the luxury fashion house Fendi, located in the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana. The presence of renowned international brands in the city has made Rome an important centre of fashion and design; and the Cinecittà Studios have been the set for many academy award–winning movies.
After two days of touring Rome, it was time to make all that important visit to the Vatican City. I had to get myself abreast with some background information as well as the city’s dress code; no revealing clothes, such as dresses, shorts, or above-knee skirts, shoulders covered, no wearing of flip-flops – which is considered too casual and informal to enter the Vatican City. In addition, metallic objects, such as scissors or knives, and food are not allowed inside the Vatican.
In spite of its size, only 0.44 square kilometres and being the world’s smallest country, within the walls of the Vatican are enough attractions and things to do to keep official visitors and tourists busy for several days; however, it is important to prioritise your sightseeing. The two must-see sights are the St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel as well as the Apostolic Palace.
The Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the pope, the head of the Catholic Church, located in Vatican City and also known as the Papal Palace, Palace of the Vatican and the Vatican Palace. You have a range of sites to see – both inside and out of the Apostolic Palace. You are allowed to see some of the palace’s stunning rooms while your guide gives you an insight into the purpose and history attached to each room.
In addition, the Vatican Palace contains magnificent rooms decorated by the greatest artists of their time, as well as priceless collections in more than a dozen museums. In addition to the major museums, smaller collections will appeal to specialised interests: the Museum of Secular Art’s ancient sculpture, the Museum of Sacred Art’s finds from catacombs and early Christian churches, the Map Gallery, a gallery of candelabras and tapestries.
You will also see objects brought back by missionaries, Papal carriages, vintage cars, and a collection of more than 800 works of modern religious art by Matisse, Dali, Munch, Rouault, and others. Discover the best things to see and do with our list of the top-rated tourist attractions in the Vatican.
- Peter’s Basilica
The centrepiece of the Vatican and one of the best places to visit, the magnificent St. Peter’s Basilica was built between the 16th and 18th centuries, replacing earlier structures that began in 326 on what is thought to be where St. Peter was buried. Ironically, it was the selling of indulgences to finance this building in the 16th century that provoked Martin Luther to begin the Protestant Reformation.
The work of famous artists begins before you enter the church: in the portico are an equestrian statue of Constantine by Bernini and fragments of a mosaic by Giotto above the main doorway. It is from the old church, as are the double bronze doors.
The huge nave – 185 metres long and 46 metres tall – rises to a dome 119 metres, above and can accommodate a congregation of more than 60,000. Compare it to the dimensions of other great churches marked in the floor. On your right, Michelangelo’s famous Pietà, sculpted when he was only 24, is behind reinforced glass. Also, on the right hand is the richly decorated Chapel of the Sacrament, with Bernini’s tabernacle and his rival Borromini’s bronze grille.
Michelangelo’s dome is held on four massive pentagonal piers; and below it, under Bernini’s magnificent Baroque bronze baldacchino (canopy), is the Papal altar. Below is the tomb of St. Peter. The bronze throne in the apse, flanked by papal tombs, is also by Bernini. Tombs of more popes are in the right aisle.
Near the Baptistery are the stairs – a lift is outside near the Gregorian Chapel – to the roof, from which you can climb 330 steep steps inside the dome to the lantern for a closer look at the dome’s structure and magnificent views over St. Peter’s Square. Beneath the church is Vatican Necropolis, the final resting place of several former popes and is said to house the remains of St. Peter himself.
2. Sistine Chapel
Built by Pope Sixtus IV in 1473-84, the Sistine Chapel is a rectangular hall, which is the pope’s domestic chapel, also used for services and special occasions. After the death of a pope, the conclave to elect his successor is held here. The frescoes by Michelangelo and others covering the walls and ceiling, acknowledged as the pinnacle of Renaissance painting, were extensively restored from 1980 to 1994, removing layers of candle-soot, dust, varnish, grease, and overpainting to reveal their original luminous colours.
The side walls are covered with large frescoes of biblical scenes against the background of Umbrian and Tuscan scenery, painted for Sixtus IV by the most celebrated painters of the day – Perugino, Botticelli, Rosselli, Pinturicchio, Signorelli and Ghirlandaio. These late-15th-century paintings already reflect the ideas of humanism, recognising humans as individuals and important in the historical process. The left-hand wall shows Old Testament scenes and the right wall, New Testament scenes.
The frescoes on the ceiling were painted by Michelangelo, almost completely unaided by assistants, in the reign of Pope Julius II, between 1508 and 1512. Michelangelo’s ambitious idea was to depict the Creation as described in Genesis, beginning with God separating light from darkness, creating the sun and the moon, separating land and sea, and creating Adam and then Eve, and continuing through the story of Noah.
Below in the vaulting are colossal figures of the prophets and sibyls. Michelangelo began work on the large fresco on the altar wall in 1534, depicting the final scene in the story of the world, the Last Judgment. Its dramatic presentation and artistic finesse rank it as one of the greatest achievements of European painting.
3. Vatican Library
The value of its contents makes the Vatican Library the richest in the world, with 7,000 incunabula – printed before 1501, 25,000 medieval hand-written books, and 80,000 manuscripts that have been collected since the library’s founding in 1450. And that’s just the old books; it doesn’t count all the books it contains that were printed since the end of the 15th century.
In its 70-metre-long hall, built by Domenico Fontana, you can admire some of its most precious treasures: beautiful hand-illuminated Gospels, Biblical codices, early printed books, parchment manuscripts, and ancient scrolls and papyri. The library also has a recently expanded collection of pontifical coins and medals.
4. Collection of modern religious art
Amid all the antiquities and Renaissance art, a more recent addition to the Vatican treasures was inaugurated in 1973 as a result of an initiative by Pope Paul VI in 1964. The Pontiff noted the gap between the Catholic Church and contemporary art, hoping to bring them closer in the future. That began the extension of the Vatican’s small collection of 19th-century art to include more recent works.
As with the other Vatican museums, not all the collection – which numbers more than 8000 – is on display, but the works shown in galleries between Borgia Apartment and the Sistine Chapel present an overview of 20th-century religious paintings. Works on religious themes in the collection include those by Salvador Dali, Vincent Van Gogh, Marc Chagall, Francis Bacon, Otto Dix, Giorgio de Chirico and Henri Matisse. An entire room is dedicated to Matisse’s Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, France.
