Vatican Museums
by Tony Perrottet
In the early 1500s, Rome was full of neglected ruins from the days of the ancient Empire, which still contained artworks buried amongst the rubble. The Renaissance had seen a sudden growth of interest in all things classical, and the popes – cultivated men who were in touch with the intellectual currents of the day – were the richest art collectors in Italy. They began offering substantial cash rewards for any sculptures, until Rome was scoured by freelance treasure hunters on the hunt for pagan masterpieces.
The most dramatic discovery occurred in 1506, when a Roman father-and-son team of excavators reported a promising find near the ruined Baths of Titus. The artist Michelangelo himself excitedly hurried over to help with the work, followed by the pope’s official agent, Guiliano da Sangallo. When the excavators brushed away the dirt of 1,000 years, they found an enormous marble sculpture, perfectly intact, of a muscular Trojan hero being attacked by giant snakes. Guilano cried out in amazement, “This is the very Laocoön described by (the ancient Roman author) Pliny!”
The spectacular image was carted off to the Vatican, and the lucky discoverers were awarded a lifetime pension of 600 ducats a year – the equivalent of approximately $75,000 a year now. Today, the Laocoön can still be seen in the Cortile Ottagono, or Octagonal Court, of the Vatican Museums, where it was placed in 1506 as the centerpiece of the new art collection of Pope Julius II (of Sistine Chapel fame).
The gallery had been first used three years earlier, when a statue of Apollo was placed in the same courtyard. The displays were greatly expanded by Julius’ successor, the young, easygoing aesthete Leo X, who appointed the brilliant painter Raphael as his superintendent of antiquities. (Amongst other things, Raphael lowered himself with ropes and torches into the buried vaults of Nero’s Golden Palace, whose walls were covered with frescoes; the remains can still be visited today). The years of these two popes, Julius and Leo, from 1503 to 1521, would be remembered as a golden age of discovery.
After so many centuries of religious distaste for pagan art, the highest office holders in Christendom were now using vast amounts of Vatican funds to promote the lost world of the Romans, whose sculptures now seemed to capture perfect harmony and mythological wonder. Julius and Leo were also responsible for another revolutionary move, for which we can all be grateful – they were the first to open their private collections in the Vatican and nearby Campidoglio to public visitors, thus creating the very idea of the very first “museums,” designed to encourage the appreciation of beauty and culture.
