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Vatican State - The Holy see

The Pope does nothing on a small scale; by a mystery of the faith, the world's smallest country contains the world's largest museum, piazza, and church.

If cruel destiny decrees that you must see the Vatican Museums, St Peter's, and Castel Sant'Angelo all in one day, make it a Monday (when all the state museums are closed anyway).

It is the only day that Castel Sant'Angelo is open in the afternoon, and if you've had the foresight to book an afternoon tour of the Ancient Necropolis under St Peter's you can even, with some fancy footwork, fit that in too  though our publisher refuses to be liable for any blisters or fallen arches you may sustain in the process.

Remember the dress code: no shorts, sleeveless blouses or tee shirts. 

The one attraction that even the saints in heaven couldn't squeeze into a single day itinerary is the three hour morning tour of Vatican City (though from the dome you get a bird's eye view of the little state and its gardens). If it's not Monday, make sure to start early in the Vatican Museums, and leave by 11.30 for Castel Sant'Angelo, as it closes at 1 pm.

Or in the summer, begin with Castel Sant'Angelo and St Peter's, have an early lunch, and then move on to the cool corridors of the Vatican museums.

If you will be in Rome on the last Sunday of the month, take advantage of papal charity the Vatican museums are free.

Vatican City

Vatican, curiously, means 'prophecy', for it was on this eighth hill of Rome that King Numa received tips on religion from the Sibyls.

But as it was on the wrong side of the Tiber the land was cheap, and Caligula used it to build his personal circus, later known as Nero's; here St Peter was crucified upside down, at his own request, so that his martyrdom would not resemble Christ's.

He was buried in a nearby cemetery, on a spot that has been hallowed ever since.

It has been 1111 chief residence of Peter's successors since the late 14th century.

'The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the Deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof, said Thomas Hobbes, though since Hobbes this  imperial ectoplasm has been confined like an a frit in a magic lamp.

Better know  as the independent state of Vatican City (pop. around 1000), But the temporal power of the popes had been in decline for centuries; the old Papal States by the 18th century were the worst run in Europe, kept 'alive only because earth  refuses to swallow them, as Goethe put it. Unfortunately, thanks to Mussolini much of the evil of the Papal States has been concentrated in a country the size of  a golf course-one where the duffers don't always count all their strokes.

For  instead of creating a realm of the spirit, as Vatican brochures would like to believe, members of the Curia who run Vatican City have used its sovereignty  (read unaccountability) to create the Corporate Papacy, the world’s last real autocracy, with a tiny tax haven all its own.

The scandal of Vatican finances, Mafia connections, the laundering of drug money through the Vatican bank and the circumstances surrounding the sudden death of John Paul I have been soI unsavory that the government across the Tiber has responded by decreasing the Church's role in the state, legalizing divorce and abortion, making religious instruction optional in schools, taxing Vatican profit from the stock market, and taking away Roman Catholicism's special status as the official religion of Italy.

Yet as you stroll among the merry crowds of pilgrims and tourists chattering in every known language, remember Boccaccio's story in the Decameron, of two friends who live in Paris, one Christian and one Jewish, the former constantly pestering the other to convert.

Finally the Jew agrees, on the condition that he first Visits Rome, to see if the life and habits of the pope and his cardinals were evidenced of the superiority of their faith.

The Christian naturally despairs, but off the Jew goes to Rome, returning with the expected tale of a thousand abominations, declaring that the pontiff and the rest were doing their level best to reduce the Christian religion to naught and drive it from the face of the earth.

That the faith could  survive and prosper with such sharks in charge was enough to convince him that it must indeed be holy and genuine, and he converted immediately.

Vatican City is surrounded by a high wall, designed by Michelangelo; its only public entrances are through St Peter's Square and the Vatican Museums.

Swiss guards (still recruited from the four Catholic cantons), dressed in a scaled-down version of the striped suits designed by either Michelangelo or Raphael, stand ready to smite you with their halberds if you try to push your way in elsewhere.

Borgo

Someone has calculated that there is room for about 300,000 people in the piazza, with no crowding. Few have ever noticed Bernini's little joke on antiquity; the open space almost exactly matches the size and dimensions of the Coliseum.

And as Norwood Young wrote, in the 1901 Story of Rome, the intention of the architects is not dissimilar to overawe and crush the individual.

But now I feel the cold scrutiny of Bernini's self-complacent columns, writes Mr Young.

Their long octopus arms ready to encircle me, while the body of the monster waits eyeing me from the distance.

I cannot escape.Bernini would prefer us to see his Colonnade, with its 284 massive columns and statues of 140 saints, as 'the arms of the Church embracing the world'.

Stand on either of the two dark stones at the foci of the elliptical piazza, and you will see the forest of columns resolve into Mill rows, a subtly impressive optical effect like the hole in the dome of the Pantheon. Bernini designed the Colonnade so that the nobility could drive their carriage underneath to St Peter's, sheltered from sun or rain.

Flanked by two lovely fountains, luxuriantly spraying water all over the pavement the one on the right by Carlo Maderno (1614), and the other, copied 1from it in 1667-the Vatican Obelisk, though only average-size for an obelisk, Is one of the most fantastical relics in all Rome.

Off to the right of the square is a confusing cluster of buildings, the Vatican palaces, built over the years to satisfy some of the bigger papal egos. Modern popes don't take up much room; since 1903, when the newly-elected Pius X refused to move from the servants' quarters of the Apostolic Palace (the tallest building) where he stayed during the con­clave, the popes have chosen to live there, behind the last two windows on the right, on the top floor.

on Sunday at noon Pope appears at the window and blesses the crowd in the piazza.

The gallery along the right, the Corridore del Bernini, leads to the great Bronze Door, the ceremonial entrance to the Vatican for visiting ,dignitaries; it leads to the Scala Regia. On the left side are the Vatican information office.

At the end is the Arco delle Campane, under St Peter's bells, guarded by the Swiss; if you 're booking to see the necropolis, just tell them “Ufficio degli Scavi'.  

see also:

Vatican Museums

Sistine Chapel

St Peter's Basilica

Rome Basilicas

Vatican Gardens

Vatican City Map