Terrafriends
Your Vatican Tour
Vatican City is completely walled except for its main entrance into St. Peter Sqare from Via della Concillazione. Entering the square at its center you will notice a giant obelisk. it was brought to Rome in 40 A.D. from Egypt by emperor Caligula and it is believed near this spot is where St. Peter was Crusified.
At 108.7 acres Vatican City is the smallest state in the world. It covers an area known to the ancient Romans as Vaticanus. It is smaller than the grounds of the U.S. Capital in Washignton D.C. Its about a quarter the size of Monaco, and Toronto High Park. The United Nations has declared the Vatican a World Heritage Site for its extraordinary cultural importance, thus entitling it special protection. No other country has so been designated
The primary purpose of the Vatican State is to provide political independence to the pope, head of the Catholic Church. He is subject to no government or political power.
The Holy See also has sovereignty of about a dozen other buildings behond the Vatican Walls. Some of those properties are:
- Castel Gandolgo (papal summer residence)
- Basilica of St. John Lateran
- St. Paul's Outside-the-Wall
- Santa Maria Maggiore
Some of the worlds's greates collections of art, books and documents are preserved within the Vatican Walls. in 1508 Pope Julius II commissioned the young Raphael to decorate the Stanza della Segnatura There is where you find the painting of The School of Athens Some of the great thinkers of antiquity are represented: Plato, and Aristotle. He also painted his contemporaries: Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.
Another masterpice to be admired in the Sistene Chapel is the The Fall and Expulsion from Paradise by Michelangelo. One of the world best known art treasure is to be found inside St. Peter's Basilica, another Michelangelo creation Pieta a sorrowful, but yet serene Mary grieving her son Jesus. Note: it had been restored after it was attacked by a madman in 1972.
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