Rebuilding The Renaissance

The most famous work of art in the Vatican Museums is Michelangelo's "Sistine Chapel Ceiling." This episode explains how best to experience this stunning work of art, as well as the other masterpieces that are in the Sistine Chapel.

The next major stop in your visit to the Vatican Museums after the Gallery of the Maps is the former apartments of Pope Julius II. They are known as the "Rooms of Raphael" because they were decorated with beautiful frescoes by Raphael between 1507 and 1513, including his famous "School of Athens." This fresco depicts the greatest philosophical and scientific minds of the ancient world including Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Euclid.

This podcast examines the extraordinary collection of 16th and 17th century tapestries in the Vatican collection, many of which were designed by Raphael and his workshop. It also looks at the amazing array of geographical maps of Italian territories and Papal dominions in Renaissance Italy that cover more than a football field of wall space!

This episode explores the majestic Belvedere Courtyard, which was designed by Donato Bramante at the beginning of the 16th century. It also examines the 18th-century Pio Clementino Museum which houses ancient Greek and Roman sculptural masterpieces such as the Laocoön, Apollo Belvedere, and the Belvedere Torso.

While more than 7 million people visit the Vatican Museums each year, few of them realize there is much more to this extraordinary collection than just the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel. The Pinacoteca, or "painting gallery," of the Vatican Museums opened in 1932 and includes masterpieces by Giotto, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, and Bernini.