I am about to take my first trip to the Vatican, and am having a hard time understanding the difference between the Art and Faith tour and the regular tour. From what I can tell, the Art and Faith tour skips the Raphael Rooms and describes things with more of an emphasis on the religious aspects of the art. Is anybody able to offer further clarification? Will we generally see all of the same things, but just have them described to us in more religious terms than secular terms? We are Christians, and would like to hear the religious side of things, but also don't want to miss out on any of the basic/general info by taking a more specialized tour since this is our first visit. Any info you have would be appreciated - my online research has been pretty fruitless in this area. Thanks so much!
Posted by
Alexandria, VA
771 posts
I can't speak to the differences between the two tours--we did the Pristine Sistine tour with Walks of Italy, but I thought that Raphael's huge painting of "The School of Athens" was one of the highlights of the Vatican museums. The picture is supposed to represent the scientists and philosophers of Athens--Aristotle, Socrates, etc., but Raphael used the faces of Michaelangelo and himself, among others, to represent the figures.
Posted by
San Jose, CA
1994 posts
I've been to the Vatican Museums many times, but I particularly enjoyed the art and faith tour. I'm almost certain it does go through the Raphael rooms, so you may want to check the Vatican website. I don't bBelieve it goes through the Pio Christian museum, which has the earliest Christian artifacts; I would suggest you also visit that. It often keeps shorter hours than the rest of the museums, but it is wonderfully uncrowded and has some amazing pieces.
So much of formal art history excludes God and faith when looking at religious art (substituting conspiracy theories, or psychological or political agendas, or rebelliousness, or…). I found that tour to be a wonderful antidote to that type of art history.
Posted by
OP
195 posts
Thank you for your reply, I will try to contact the museum to check. Their description of the Art and Faith tour lists all the same things as the regular tour, but does not include the Raphael Rooms in the list of what is covered. Hopefully they will tell me this is a typo, as the Art and Faith tour sounds like what we are looking for, but we probably wouldn't want to miss the Raphael Rooms! They say you can't go back in on your own after the tour is over, since they take you out to the Basilica as well.
Posted by
San Jose, CA
1994 posts
This is from vatican museums website:
An excursion through beauty from a Christian point of view for a Catechesis with Art. The Vatican Museums offer an opportunity to reveal the educational dimension of art according to an iconographic-pedagogic programme. "The Museum truly displays a continuous interweaving between Christianity and culture, between faith and art, between the divine and the human". (From the Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Staff of the Vatican Museums, 23 November 2006)
The tour follows an itinerary which includes: the Pio Clementino Museum (classical antiquity), the Gallery of the Candelabras, the Gallery of the Tapestries and the Gallery of the Geographical Maps (Renaissance Art), the Raphael Rooms, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica.
Posted by
OP
195 posts
Thanks so much. I just noticed that too. One portion of the website says it does go to the Raphael Rooms, and then on the booking page it doesn't have the Raphael Rooms on the list. Will contact the Vatican and report back as to what I find out so that people can know for future reference. I am willing to bet that it was just a typo on the booking page, and that they really do cover the Raphael Rooms.
Posted by
OP
195 posts
Ok folks, looks like it was a typo after all. Unless something got lost in translation when trading e-mails with the Vatican in Italian, the person that e-mailed me back said that the Art and Faith tour does include the Raphael Rooms. So this link:
http://biglietteriamusei.vatican.va/musei/tickets/do?action=booking&codiceTipoVisita=122&step=2
must have a typo. Sorry to inconvenience all of you all because of a typo, but your feedback was helpful as it prompted me to email the Vatican rather than writing off the Art and Faith tour on the basis of it supposedly not including the Raphael Rooms. We ended up booking the Art and Faith tour and are looking forward to it!
Posted by
San Jose, CA
1994 posts
One other thought about the art and faith tour. It does not include the pinicoteca (sp?), which is the gallery of paintings. Therefore, if you want to see art from the major altarpieces or, for example, Raphael's Transfiguration, you will need to do that on your own. (FYI, in case you haven't come across this information, the "paintings" in the Basilica are mosaic reproductions – the humidity in the Basilica was damaging the paintings, so the paintings were moved to the museums and mosaics were made.) As one last point, a number of tours skip those galleries, maybe because they are extensive and often crowded.