No trip to Rome is complete without a visit to the Vatican Museum.  That is where you will find the Sistine Chapel, the Raphael rooms, and art from every civilization from the beginning of time and from every part of the world.  Most of the oldest artwork came into the Vatican’s collection through plunder though the artworks adorning the walls and ceilings (what we were most interested in seeing) was commissioned by the most important artists of the time.   There have also been many gifts made to the church over the centuries and surprising to us a whole gallery of contemporary works that have some relationship to Christian art.  The museum was more crowded than I had ever seen it before though we were pleasantly surprised to find the Sistine Chapel full but not oppressive.  They’ve done a much better job in controlling the up to 20,000 tourists a day just from cruise ships that come to see the Vatican Museum collections

.  The images I am sharing with you are specific works or types of works that you are learning about if you are in one of my classes.  The captions will give you a little more detail on them. There are many more works that I did not photograph.  In the Stanza della Signatura a great site to go to is http://www.learn.columbia.edu/raphael/htm/