Ep. 57: The Vatican – Top 7 Paintings

July 30, 2023 Peter Jans

Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.

Today's episode is on the Vatican/Vatican Museum or should we say Vatican Museums. With over 7km of art the Vatican Museum is one of the largest and most visited in the world.

With approximately 70,000 art works, not even a third are on display. An army of around 640 people work at the museum to cater for approximately six million visitors per year.

When I visited, I definitely did not realise just how big it would be, and how many rooms there are. As one of my main purposes for the trip was to see the Sistine Chapel I kept looking up at the signs and I kept seeing a sign reading Sistine Chapel with a directional arrow, and I thought we are close now. I must have seen that sign at least 20 more times before we finally arrived at the last gallery “The Sistine Chapel” which I must say, was a breath taking and sacred moment. Truly a special place.

Today’s mnemonic is on the top 7 paintings in the Vatican.

With that being said, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Peter%27s_Square,_Vatican_City_-_April_2007.jpg

Wikipedia Summary

The Vatican Museums (Italian: Musei Vaticani; Latin: Musea Vaticana) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of the most well-known Roman sculptures and most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world. The museums contain roughly 70,000 works, of which 20,000 are on display,[1] and currently employ 640 people who work in 40 different administrative, scholarly, and restoration departments.[4]

Pope Julius II founded the museums in the early 16th century.[5] The Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling and altar wall decorated by Michelangelo, and the Stanze di Raffaello (decorated by Raphael) are on the visitor route through the Vatican Museums.[6]

In 2022, the Vatican Museums were visited by 5,080,866 persons, 215 percent more than in 2021, but still below pre-COVID attendance. They ranked second in the List of most-visited art museums in the world, after the Louvre.[7]

There are 24 galleries, or rooms, in total, with the Sistine Chapel, notably, being the last room visited within the Museum.[8]

The Vatican Museums trace their origin to a single marble sculpture, purchased in the 16th century: Laocoön and His Sons was discovered on 14 January 1506, in a vineyard near the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. Pope Julius II sent Giuliano da Sangallo and Michelangelo, who were working at the Vatican, to examine the discovery.[9] On their recommendation, the Pope immediately purchased the sculpture from the vineyard owner. The Pope put the sculpture, which represents the Trojan priest Laocoön and his two sons, Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by giant serpents, on public display at the Vatican exactly one month after its discovery.[10][11]

Benedict XIV founded the Museum Christianum, and some of the Vatican collections formed the Lateran Museum, which Pius IX founded by decree in 1854.[12]

The museums celebrated their 500th anniversary in October 2006 by permanently opening the excavations of a Vatican Hill necropolis to the public.[13]

On 1 January 2017, Barbara Jatta became the Director of the Vatican Museums, replacing Antonio Paolucci who had been director since 2007.[14][15]

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Museums]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vatican_Museums,_Musei_Vaticani_(Ank_Kumar,_Infosys_Limited)_15.jpg

Mnemonic

The Vatican - Top 7 Paintings Mnemonic – SMeLL of Fire in the Sistine Chapel

(Picture a massive fire in the Sistine Chapel and the associated smell of the melting paintings)

1. St Matthew

2. Martyrdom Of St. Erasmus

3. The Last Judgement

4. Liberation Of St. Peter

5. Fire In The Borgo

6. The Sistine Chapel Ceiling

7. Crucifixion Of Saint Peter

Five Fun Facts

1. The Vatican City is a small city-state and enclave spread over 0.44 sq km making it the smallest country in the world.

2. Home to less than a thousand people the Vatican City is the crime capital of the world with the highest number of crimes per capita, which mainly involve pickpocketing, purse snatching and shoplifting.

And apparently, selling holy water on the black market is another one of those crimes. I actually had someone come up to me, and try to sell me some holy water. Anyway, I asked him how he made the water holy? To which he replied, “we boiled the hell out of it!”

3. I hate to paint a gloomy picture here, but the Vatican City is also the wine capital of the world with the average resident consuming a stupendous 74 litres per year which is double the consumption of the wine-loving countries of France and Italy.

4. The Vatican has no permanent citizenship as there are no hospitals and hence no births. You are granted citizenship by appointment and once the appointment ceases, the citizenship is taken away.

5. The Vatican is the only country in the world to be entirely designated as a World Heritage site, which was listed in 1984.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Vatican_Museums_,_(Ank_Kumar,_Infosys_Limited)_13.jpg

Three Question Quiz

Q.1. The Pope is protected by what guards?

Q.2. What is the official language of Vatican City?

Q.3. Does the Vatican City have a prison?

Bonus Q. What is the meeting of Cardinals to elect a Pope called?

Bonus Q. What year did the Vatican City become an independent state? Options are 1829 or 1929

Mnemonic Recap

The Vatican - Top 7 Paintings Mnemonic – SMeLL of Fire in the Sistine Chapel

(Picture a massive fire in the Sistine Chapel and the associated smell of the melting paintings)

1. St Matthew