Angels and Demons

Today was my day to visit the Vatican. I expected it to be exhausting, so I took my time getting out of my hotel. After breakfast, I took a little time to read up on the internet about what I was going to see, and also work with my maps and guidebook and plan some excursions for the rest of my time here. I circled things of interest on my map and that will help me to plan what I do in the next few days, concentrating on one area each day.

I decided to catch the 11 a.m. blue line to Piazza del Popolo. I knew the time the bus left from Santa Maria Maggiore because from that bus stop it is every hour on the hour. I decided to go to Piazza del Popolo because it was the place I knew the least about, it is the farthest place that I wanted to visit from my hotel (and thus the hop on/hop off bus was a good way to get there) and there was a church I wanted to visit.

On my way, I decided I needed a snack so I would not be too hungry when I started looking for lunch. I stopped at the pizzeria I went to on my first day and got an arancino (rice ball) with meat. It was the perfect morning snack, which I ate as I made my way through the crowds to get to the piazza before 11.

I could see the bus ahead of me as my watch inched closer and closer to 11, and then beyond. I thought it would be really sucky if I saw the bus take off before I got there and would have to revise my plan. The good thing about the blue line was that it would get me there quicker than the red line, and also the blue line went to St. Peter’s and the Vatican on the next stop after Piazza del Popolo – not that that was too important, but it did figure into all of my planning (if I’d had to take the red line which runs every 20 minutes, I could have just crossed the street – the red and blue lines run in opposite directions).

Well, thankfully, Italians are not known for their promptness, and the bus sat there as I approached, and even after I’d boarded. I think we left around 11:05.
We got to Piazza del Popolo around 11:45. I thought the church closed at noon (that’s what my guide book told me), so I rushed inside. Once inside, it was dingy and smelled moldy and mildewy. I could not remember why I was there and then I thought – ‘ah Caravaggio’ – as that was part of my planning on choosing churches. Either I chose churches that had mosaics, or famous things like Bernini’s “Ecstasy of St. Teresa” or a Michaelangelo or Caravaggio. Since it was pretty clear that this dank old church was nothing special architecturally, I guessed it had some Caravaggios, and it did. Two in fact. I forget what they were about, but I do remember one from art history class – one of the saints – Peter or Paul, being nailed to a cross, but he was upside down, which was revolutionary at the time. Caravaggio was a shocker and much of his art was rejected by the church. I liked his work from the first time I saw it because it was so dramatic and the men were really muscular! Turns out he was quite a controversial figure, dated a prostitute who he often fought with, painted works that were often rejected and considered scandalous and ended up having to leave Rome after killing a man who beat him in some ball game. He died when he was 37. I wonder what he was really like, and how it was that he was able to learn to paint so well.

After making my rounds in the church, I headed out to look for lunch. I found a little café set up outside with tables and a menu on a chalkboard, right next to the busy street outside of the entrance to the piazza. There was a kind of modern looking kiosk type bar that I assumed was where the food came from. People went inside and stood at the bar and had a coffee or snack. I sat down in the empty café and waited, but no one appeared to take my order. I got up and walked around to see if there were any other choices, but decided I didn’t want to hunt for lunch, so I went back and sat down. I tried walking past the bar and making it obvious that I was sitting down, but still no one came out. In frustration, I got up and left. I headed down one street and passed a little restaurant where people were drinking coffee. No one was eating. Maybe it was too early for lunch? I saw some guys walking eating pizza, and then spotted the pizzeria. I decided pizza would be a good snack to get me through the Vatican. I could eat more later.

I went into the pizzeria where there was an enormous assortment of pizzas. I am still not sure how to order, and I just said “una pizza ai funghi” - a mushroom pizza. They have these big square pizza pies and the guy showed me how much he was going to cut. I said “si”. He then asked if I wanted it heated up. I said “si”. He pulled it out of the oven, cut it in half and put both pieces together like a sandwich. I stood at the counter and ate my pizza.

The pizza here is really amazing. The crust is crunchy and delicious and the pizza is really flavorful – not a lot of sauce, but what sauce there is has great flavor. After finishing it, I wanted to try another one, but decided not to. I’m feeling really fat with all of this pasta, gelato, wine, etc. How do Italians stay so slim?
I walked out to the bus stop for the sightseeing bus and it was scheduled to arrive in 5 minutes. Of course it was late and arrived in 15, but it was okay. I got on, and within a few minutes got off at the Vatican.

I now had some time to kill before I met up with my “skip the line” tour company. I think I probably could have just gone in on my own and it would have been better, but I did what I did. After finding the meeting place which was across from the entrance to the Vatican Museums, which were way way around this huge defensive wall quite a walk from St. Peter’s Square, I went for a gelato. There was a woman waiting at the counter and her boyfriend or husband came to the entrance and asked her to order him a small gelato of nocciola and ciocolate (hazelnut and chocolate) – she , annoyed, said she had just gotten a large almond granita. She then told him he could order it himself. She sounded pissed. He asked for what he wanted, but the woman working in the shop told him to try the granita. He did and I guessed he liked it. I felt sorry for him that he was unable to get his own ice cream. I guess that is what happens when you get married.

I decided to try the almond granite too, but asked for a little chocolate too. I’m glad I got the chocolate, because I didn’t like the almond that much. It didn’t taste like almond really, and I didn’t like the flavor. I did like the whole idea of granita though – it’s what I grew up eating that we called “Italian Water Ice”, but this was so much better.

Finally our tour company arrived, they sorted us into different groups and those of us who were entering and then heading off on our own were put with one tour group where we would enter and then be given our tickets and set free.
It was a mob scene, even though I am sure it was not nearly as crowded as it is in the morning when there are more tour groups. I was hot and impatient and just wanted to get to the Sistene Chapel.

I followed the signs, marveled at the obscene collection of art from antiquity onwards, and was especially struck by the large collection of headless classical statues, and then a room full of heads, as well as the large number of statues that had their genitals chopped off. I found it kind of disturbing to see that, and to think about the beautiful Greek art that celebrated the nude form, and whatever perverted way of thinking the Christians who stole them from Greece had that told them it was okay to chop off their nuts. Others had little grape leaves attached, which I found kind of funny.

I made my way through the incredible collection – tapestries, painted ceilings, major crowds, a Rafael room, the Borgia apartment (same Borgia family that Lucretia was from – apparently they were a little nuts and assassinations, poisonings, etc., were not uncommon, but they also had a Pope in their family) – following the signs to the Sistene Chapel and finally arriving.

It was everything I thought it would be – beautiful, overwhelming, grand, and supremely crowded. I entered and it was like entering a Tokyo train station at rush hour. There was no room. The guard told us to keep moving, so I did, into the crowd. I found a space to stop and look at the last judgement – saw Michaelangelo’s self-portrait, looked up at the ceiling and saw God touching Adam, and I left. I’d had enough. I looked at my watch. I had spent a little over 30 minutes in the Vatican museums. Probably a record for the shortest amount of time.

I guess I could have done other parts of the museums – the Egyptian collection , for example, but I had seen enough. I had decided this was not a collection of art that was acquired under the best of circumstances. Much of it had been stolen, much of it had been taken from people who were brutally murdered, and that which was commissioned was done by people who were less than moral and were in positions of power not because of their spirituality, but because of their family connections, money and sleaziness quotient.

From the exit of the Sistene Chapel, I entered St. Peter’s Basilica and once again was overwhelmed by the sheer, obscene extravagance of the whole thing. The place was enormous and it was clear that it was priceless, both in terms of the materials used in its construction and the art that decorated every single inch of the place. I saw the Pieta, dwarfed by the enormity of its surroundings and cheapened by the idiots who stood in front if it (protected by its glass case) to get their picture taken with it. I just don’t understand this thing that people do where they see something famous and have to have their picture taken with it. For me the power of this particular work of art is that it shows a woman holding the limp, dead body of her son. I thought of all of the women in the world who have done that – now in Iraq and Afghanistan and in so many other places. And here were idiots standing there grinning while their friends took their pictures. Sorry. I didn’t get it.

I walked around with the thousands of other people amazed at the grandeur of the Basilica, but unlike most of them, I was not moved, or awed, I was beginning to get nauseous. I’m not sure exactly what it was that was making me nauseous, but I think it was so many thoughts that were swirling around in my head, about the power of the Pope, the Vatican, the hypocrisy, the history, the millions who had been killed for one reason or other, the policies which dehumanized, marginalized, kept people in poverty and ignorant and easily controlled, the mythology which had been so perfected and so well propagandized, and here I was in the greatest example of its propaganda – seeing these popes, many of whom were common criminals with good connections, carved in marble for prosperity, looking so pious, being looked down on by Jesus and elevated up there as saints. It was all such a sham. And I thought of Michelangelo, perhaps one of the most famous gay artists of all time, who created the biggest draw in the Vatican museum, and the Catholic church spending its money and using its power to ensure that Catholic parents still reject their gay and lesbian children and governments that are easily swayed by religious voters are afraid to grant equal rights to their gay and lesbian citizens – it all made me sick. I wished I’d brought a sharpie with me so I could write some graffiti in the men’s room or something. But I knew that one little sharpie was no match for the power of the Vatican.

I did use the restroom, and I didn’t steal toilet paper. I just wanted to leave this country, city-state of the Vatican and return to the real world as soon as possible.

I did stop in the Vatican post office and sent a post card to my parents.
I wrote:

Dear Mom and Dad,

Greetings from the Vatican. The Pope sends his love. Don’t worry about St. John’s closing, they have plenty of money here. Hope you are well.

Love,
Rick

St. John’s is the parish I grew up in. The school I went to for 8 years closed down a few years ago, and even though they increased the number of Bingo games they offered every weekend, it still wasn’t enough. The church itself is set to close down soon. My parents will have to travel about 30 minutes every weekend to go to another parish to church. Their diocese claims there are not enough people to keep their parish open.

As I left and saw that huge bronze doors, the Swiss guards, and the huge expanse of St. Peter's Square ringed by hundreds of Popes or Saints or both, I understood the power of the Vatican. I was thinking about “wealth” as defined not by actual money, but by “value”, like how wealth is defined by property and assets and how I have none, zero, and how the Vatican has amassed enormous wealth. I thought of one of my favorite parts of “Eat, Pray, Love” when Liz is talking to the brother or brother-in-law of someone and he tells her about each city having its own word. He tells her that the Vatican’s word is Power. I got that. And I thought about how the Vatican continues to use its power to marginalize people like me, and I didn’t like it. I left hating the Vatican and I do not think I will ever return, unless one day they change and make me feel like I am welcome there, or maybe they sell all of their art and treasures and use the money to work to bring the world’s poor out of poverty and to end war or to some how make amends for all of their failures in the past, or to make reparations for their own sins.

I don’t see that happening, so I don't think I'll be going back to the Vatican any time soon... unless I figure out how to bring down Goliath with a sharpie.