The Vatican Museums

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The Vatican Museums

The Vatican museums originated in Rome in 1503 when Pope Julius II della Rovere took a statue of Apollo from his church of St. Peter in Chains, and placed it in the courtyard of the Belvedere Palace. In 1506, the Laocoon was added, and thus began what is now known as one of the greatest collections of artwork in the world[i]. The papal authority was one of the first to open their art collections to the public, thereby encouraging knowledge of art history and culture[ii]. The collections began with Pope Julius II; but, the museums as we now know them were begun under the patronage of Pope's Clement XIV (1769-1774) and Pius VI (1775-1799), which started the first curatorial section[iii]. The Vatican Museums are not just a remnant of times past, but as the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, explained in 2000, they [express] the renewed will of the Church to seek dialogue with humanity in the sign of art and culture, putting at the disposal of everybody the heritage which history entrusted her[iv]. The museums include a vast amount of sculptures, paintings, and artifacts from many cultures throughout the world; including a Gregorian Egyptian Museum, Chiaramonti Museum, a Gregorian Etruscan Museum, a Vase Collection, the Room of the Immaculate Conception, and the Sistine Chapel[v].

To describe a few of the galleries within the Vatican Museums, the Gregorian Egyptian museum was founded by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839. It contains statues and stelae with hieroglyphic inscriptions, bronze and clay figures from Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, mummies, cuneiform tablets and seals from Mesopotamia, and other Egyptian statuary mostly donated from private collections of the 19th century. The papal interest in Egypti...

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...de Web 13 December 2003 from http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/PIN/PIN_Main.html

[ix] Vatican Museums: Brief History, retrieved from the World Wide Web 13 December 2003 from http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MET/MET_Main.html

[x] Pettrich, Ferdinand (Friedrich), retrieved from the World Wide Web 13 December 2003 from http://www.askart.com/Biography.asp

[xi] Vatican Museums: Brief History, retrieved from the World Wide Web 13 December 2003 from http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/z-Info/MV_Info_NotizieStoriche.html

[xii] Roma2000, retrieved from the World Wide Web 13 December 2003 from? http://www.roma2000.it/zmusvat.html

[xiii]The Vatican Museum, retrieved from the World Wide Web 13 December 2003 from http://www.pellegrinocattolico.com/ctv/museo.htm

[xiv] Roma2000, retrieved from the World Wide Web 13 December 2003 from? http://www.roma2000.it/zmusvat.html

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