The Sistine Chapel: The Paintings Are Just A Decoration, The Papal Conclave Is Just A Tradition

    (I avoided the long queue by reserving online)

I have been walking around the labyrinth of time and history for hours now and yet, these huge statues of Roman and Greek gods, and other fascinating works of art only capture my attention for only a few moments. The statue of Apollo of the Belvedere, believed to be about 1,800 years old and sculpted from one huge, solid marble, hardly made me stop to admire its colossal significance to the art world that even led Napoleon Bonaparte to loot it, and while the Gallery of Maps, with its 120-meter long curved ceiling full of frescoes, was very fascinating, considering Ignazio Danti, the cartographer, did not have Google maps to refer to in 1580.

(Triumphant Perseus holding Medusa's head 

carved by Antonio Canova in 1801)

(Gallery of Maps)

I’m inside the Musei Vaticani or the Vatican Museums in Rome, Italy, where I am tracing a path lined with the priceless acquisitions of the past papacies that have been put together on display since 1506, fifteen years before Ferdinand Magellan set foot in the Philippines. But of the 70,000 paintings, sculptures and archeological artifacts owned by the Vatican, only 20,000 are lining that path in several captivating rooms, and of all those rooms, there is one that no visitor would ever want to miss: the Sistine Chapel.

 (Refreshments for sale before going 

into the Sistine Chapel)

After walking for two hours through the prescribed route when visiting the Vatican Museums, I stopped by Bar Caffetteria Sistina to rest my legs and fill my tummy with a sandwich before I finally stepped into the most awaited part of the tour. Whoever thought of the idea to put up a small refreshments corner before one enters the Sistine Chapel should have been canonized. As the whole stretch of the Vatican Museums is 7.5 kilometers long, a weary tourist deserves a rest before entering the holiest, the most fascinating, and the most beautiful part of the tour. I, therefore, prepared myself by munching a ham sandwich and downing it with bottled iced tea at the Bar Caffetteria Sistina.

                  (Be quiet and no cameras)

After I nourished my body, it was time to nourish my soul. I then followed the path and climbed the steps that lead up to the chapel while a sign greeted and reminded me ‘to be quiet’ and ‘no cameras’ before the main door. But when I stepped into the hall, the chapel was crowded and dim as the daylight from the high side windows provided the only illumination, but one does not need bright lights to be entranced by one’s current whereabouts. And the only loud sound heard is from the Italian guard who is dressed spiffily and shouting “Silenzio!” every now and then, although his command is always drowned by the humming whispers from his international visitors.

I stopped to absorb the moment I walked in and then breathed in the atmosphere mixed with history and the most fascinating of artworks in the world. I realized, since the papal conclave has been held in this room since 1492, the molecules of the air the past popes and the cardinals who elected them had breathed in and out must have lingered around for the past 500 years and might have ended up in my asthmatic lungs. I felt cured already!

Renamed after Pope Sixtus IV, who had it restored in 1480, the Sistine Chapel, has been transformed from a private place of worship, and with the vision of Pope Julius II and the talent of Michelangelo Buonarotti, its ceiling became into the most looked up to in the world. On any given day, about 20,000 tourists enter the Sistine Chapel and crane their necks towards the heavens to admire and be fascinated by the frescoes more than 68 feet above them. Now, I became one of them.

Not wanting to stand for the entirety of my visit, I found a vacant space on a bench on the right side of the altar. This was after all a chapel, so I planned to pray. And as I went through the decades of the Holy Rosary, I trained my eyes around the overwhelming frescoes on the walls depicting stories from the Bible as painted by the greatest of Renaissance painters like Botticelli, Perugino and Ghirlandaio, and those especially above me that were created by Michelangelo himself. Most important, I wondered how old was the bench that was providing me temporary comfort and which pope had sat on the same spot before.

(The Creation of Adam - photo from Musei Vaticani)

Although it was easy to get lost in this dizzying amount of art, tradition, and history of the Sistine Chapel, I always reminded myself that this was a place of prayer where holy men have gathered, prayed for guidance, and professed their faith right under the painting of The Creation of Adam where God creates man, and right in front of The Last Judgment where He judges all of us. Those paintings are just decorations, created by men for others. The papal conclave is just a tradition where cardinals elect Saint Peter’s successor. What is most important is to always remind ourselves that in places of worship, the most priceless or the most expensive altars of great churches, or in this case, the most famous chapel of all, should not divert our attention to what matters the most: our faith, our Christian values, and the salvation of one’s soul.

According to Pope Francis, prayer is the key to bring us closer to God, and while all the doors of the Vatican Museum require 2,797 keys to open, then, I only need one.