Rome: The Vatican... & Dali?

This was my third visit through the Vatican Museum. And while you may think that it must get "old" each time I visit it, you'd be wrong.

I always learn something new with each visit. But each visit does begin with the same thing... A peek in the garden...

I took close to 500 pictures at the Vatican. Most were probably of the things I took pictures of six years ago when I last visited. But this time, our tour guide pointed out different minute details in the art that I hadn't noticed in the previous visit.

Like this Turkish symbol in one of the paintings...

The crescent moon atop a scepter.

"Make sure you look at the floor," our guide instructed. "So many details in the floor. I know it's crowded. But you will miss some very curious and interesting things if all you do is look up."

And she was right...

Hidden in the stone work of one of the rooms (possibly the Raphael rooms - I can't recall exactly) was the Star of David.

On my last tour of the Vatican, my tour guide was very into telling us the more scandalous side of the Vatican... And really keen on telling us about the "debaucherous" imagery in the art.

Here's one example of that...

I can't recall which artist did this. Could have been Michelangelo. But half naked men dancing and playing?  Totally sounds like Michelangelo... Who I learned on my last visit was "Gayer than Christmas", according to the tour guide.

And when you look at how Michelangelo drew and sculpted the female body... You get the sense that maybe he didn't really know what a naked woman really looked or felt like. I'm sure he had plenty of nude models that were female. But what he saw when he looked at the bodies, and how he interpreted that into his work... It's very masculine.

But he always made the male bodies very beautiful.

Anyway...

The art on the walls of the rooms were beautiful. Colorful. Gilded.

I took so many photos because I was mesmerized by the colors.

I was surprised, though, when I came across this in the museum...

Dali!!! My favorite! Who knew surrealist art was in the Vatican? Not I!

This is his "Angelic Landscape" in the "modern" section of the religious art in the museum.  I never knew he was there... And this proves that you can visit this museum dozens of times and learn/see something new each time.