Walk down the Vatican galleries and virtually enter the Pinacoteca, a museum that houses numerous impressive paintings, including: Raphael’s Transfiguration, Giotto’s Stefaneschi Triptych, da Vinci’s unfinished St. Jerome and Caravaggio’s Entombment.
Your expert guide will lead you through The Pinacoteca (Picture Gallery) one of the more modern sections of the Vatican Museums. Opened in the 1930s to display the papal collection of paintings, the gallery has sixteen rooms of some of the finest paintings in the world, from medieval angels to seventeenth century martyrdoms.
Raphael’s last painting was described by Vasari as his “most beautiful and most divine” work. Unusually, it depicts two different Biblical scenes in the same painting – the transfiguration of Christ in the upper section, and the Apostles helping a boy suffering from demonic possession in the lower section. The dramatic flair of the piece was likely influenced by Michelangelo and its unique composition and symbolism has attracted a lot of critical attention.
Another highlight is a haunting sketch by Leonardo Da Vinci left unfinished. Legend has it that the sketch was discovered by a cardinal in separate parts – one section was being used as a table-top, while another was found being used as the cover for a shoe-maker’s stool.
Big name, Caravaggio, has a painting masterpiece in the Pinacoteca as well. Controversially, he depicts Christ in corporeality instead of ethereality in the Deposition.
Diving into the Pinacoteca’s masterpieces will be a flash course into the story of Italian art from the 12th the 19th century.
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