Page 24 - Expotime10_11_2017

Museums of the Mediterranean

Visitors with interest for early Christian history should Indonesia is represented by figures from the Buddhist
see the Greek-cross Room which contains a huge porphy- Temple of Borubudur from Java, which was built for the
ry sarcophagi of Constantine‘s mother Helena (306-337) Shailendra dynasty in the 8th cent. More than 1000 ob-
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and anotherone of his daughter Costantia. jects from Indonesia are in hands of the museum. Among
them are a polychrome statue of a winged lion from Bali,
The Borgia apartment with its exhibition of a collection of Wayang figures, a “Kelembit Bok shield”
modern religious art from Kalimantan, Borneo, which belonged to the Dayak
This wing belonged to a Pope from the Borgia family people.
which even historical laymen know as a symbol for the
obsession of power: Alexander VI (1492-1503). The rooms Oceania is represented, for example, with a “Ceremo-
were closed for centuries after Alexander‘s death and nial house for men” from New Guinea and scepters of
opened again at the end of the 19th cent. Today the the Mekeo in New Britain. From Africa comes a face
apartment hosts the exhibition of Modern Religious Art mask-helmet from the Igbo tribe in Nigeria or clay stat-
which Paul VI opened in 1973. The collection could fill up uettes from Basutoland (today’s Lesotho).
a bigger art museum: there are paintings of Kandinskij,
Klee, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Chagall, Dali and Picasso – The Americas are represented with a “Bible stand” in
in total more than 600 works. wood from the Caribbean, which belonged to friar Bar-
tolomeo de Las Heras, chaplain of Genuese Christopher
Columbus.
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Pius V rooms
The next pope who left his tracks here is Pius V (1566-
1572). His part includes two rooms, a gallery and a chap- The so-called Historical Museum
el with mediaeval ceramics and mosaics from modern Its name is a misguiding name because nearly anything in
times. They are decorated with frescoes from Giorgio the Vatican Museums is historical. The collection shows
Vasari and Federico Zuccari. recent objects from the Vatican State. The most im-
pressing pieces are Vatican carriages from the 19th cent.
The Ethnological Missionary Museum
While the imperialist secular powers of Europe had just The Vatican courtyards and other museums
a few centuries to plunder their colonies, the catholic The Atrium of the Corazze with four gates opens to the
church preyed nearly 2000 years on several non-Chris- courtyard of the “Pigna”, designed in the early 16th
tian civilizations beginning with the “Pagan“ cultures all cent. Donato Bramante created this courtyard to con-
around Europe, then the Islamic regions in the crusades nect the Palace of Pope Innocent VIII (1484-1492) with
and pillaging later the indigenous civilizations of Meso the Sistine Chapel, which was finished in 1484.
and Southern America. Therefore the Vatican Museums
“own“ a large booty consisting of ethnological objects Other museums are the Museo Chiaramonti founded by
from all around the world, collected by missionaries. Pius VII in the 19th cent, the Museo Gregoriano Etrusco
The exhibition shows just a few of around 100,000 ob- and the Museo Gregoriano Egiziano. The Museo Chiar-
jects of the collection. Pope Pius XI founded it 1926 in amonti contains the largest collection of stone tablets
the Lateran Palace, and it moved between 1958 and and inscriptions in the world, which can be accessed on-
1963 to the actual place. ly with a special permission. Open to the public is the
arched gallery with friezes, statues and sarcophagi and
It is an irony of history: the most valuable piece resulting the Braccio Nuovo with such worldknown statues like the
from catholic missions which forced humans to believe Augustus of Prima Porta and “The River Nile”. The Mu-
that a supernatural being created the world 6000 years seo Gregoriano Etrusco was founded by Pope Gregory
ago is the oldest tool of mankind which was ever found: XVI in 1836. It includes eight galleries with objects from
a tool for chopping bones in quarzite from South Africa the Etruscan time like vases, bronzes and sarcophagi.
which dates back about 2,000,000 years ago. “It repre- Most visitors cross it to see the famous exhibits like the
sents the beginning of technology and material culture. Laocoon group or the paintings in the Sistine Chapel but
It is the first object built intentionally by a human being for historians the archaeological pieces from the Etrus-
which has come down to us. It was used to break the cans have a high value. The same can be said about the
bone marrow which our ancestors used to eat.” (Infor- Museo Gregoriano Egiziano which houses artifacts from
mation in the museum). the ancient Egypt like papyri and animal mummies.

Furthermore the museum consists of different sections The Sistine Chapel
to organize the huge number of objects. Asia shows for The chapel is famous worldwide for its ceiling which was
example a ”Taoist Altar” and a reproduction of the altar painted between 1508 and 1512. Pope Sixtus IV ruled
of the Temple of Confucius in Qufu from China, Shintoist from 1471 and 1484 and directed the building of the
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figures, handcrafted objects by the Ainu, the indigenous chapel (hence the name). He openend the chapel 1483.
people of Hokkaido, and a model of a Lamaist monastery
from Mongolia.

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EXPOTIME!, issue October / November 2017