Arts

Incomparable, Not Inaccessible

A new director faces unique challenges as the Vatican Museums plan for a new influx of tourism.

By Greg Burke
Every year nearly three million people walk through the doors of the Vatican Museums. But for almost all of 1996, one person had been missing from that crowd: the boss.
The search is over, at least for now. In September Pope John Paul II named Francesco Buranelli, 41, as acting Director General of the Museums. Buranelli, a softspoken archeologist--his specialty is the Etruscans--was first hired to work in the Etruscan Antiquities Department in 1983. Since then he has overseen several publications and exhibitions, including the 1992 American tour of "The Etruscans--Legacy of a Lost Civilization from the Vatican Museums." The show was greeted by sizeable crowds in Memphis, Tennessee; Dallas, Texas; Morristown, New Jersey; and Provo, Utah.
Buranelli also oversaw the completion of the Vatican's Etruscan works with the purchase of the Guglielmi Collection, half of which had been donated to the Vatican in the 1930s.
Quality throughout
Buranelli takes the place of Carlo Pietrangeli, who died in 1995 at the age of 83. Pietrangeli, who had the rather curious distinction of being the only papal appointment made during the short reign of Pope John Paul I, came to the Vatican in 1978 after retiring as Superintendent of Museums and Galleries for the City of Rome.
The new director general follows a long line of impressive specialists. Pietrangeli was a reknowned archeologist, and had taken over from a respected medievalist, the Brazilian Dioclecio Redig de Campos. The head of the Museums in the early 1800s was himself a famous artist, the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova.
The waiting room outside Buranelli's small office boasts a large painting by 17th-century Spaniard Esteban Murillo, The Adoration of the Magi. It is a small sign that there is quality throughout the complex.
"We have such a collection of first-class works that it takes more attention (to maintain them) then you might imagine," Buranelli says with a smile. "We don't have to go looking for a lot of pieces." Occasionally the Vatican Museums acquire works, but normally purchases are arranged only to complement the collections that are already in place, the director notes.
Protection and restoration
The costs of running the Vatican Museums, then, are not absorbed in new expenditures to bring in works of art. The bulk of the revenues from visitors to the Museums (which bring in an estimated $20 million a year) go to labor costs and maintenance.
Only 300 people are employed full-time at the Vatican Museums, and most of them are there to watch over visitors. "With nearly seven kilometers of works exposed, you need a lot of guards," Buranelli notes. But at 300, the number of employees at the Vatican Museums is tiny compared to other world-class musems; many less impressive collections are guarded by more than 1,000 employees.
Of course guards are not the only members of the staff. The Vatican Museums also have experts in every department, and top-notch laboratories for restoring paintings, tapestries, ceramics, mosaics, and other materials. In addition to the monumental restoration of the Sistine Chapel, which was completed in 1994, experts have also brought back the original colors of Raphael's School of Athens , and they are currently finishing work on the Chapel of Nicholas V, by Blessed Fra Angelico.
Work on the Raphael and Fra Angelico frescoes were both funded by the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums, a group of benefactors drawn primarily from the United States. The establishment of this group of patrons, founded by a former secretary and treasurer of the Museums, Walter Persegati, is a sign of modernization at the Vatican Museums, although it is just one step along a long road which the curators must travel.
Coping with crowds
One of the most obvious challenges facing the leadership of the Museums, for example, is to find a way to accomodate the ever-increasing number of visitors who come to see the artistic treasures of the Vatican. Even on a slow Saturday morning in January, with no lines outside, there are still traffic jams in the Sistine Chapel. So it is easy to imagine the confusion that will occur in the middle of the summer, when the lines of tourists seeking simply to buy an admission ticket strech all the way down the Vatican hill and around the corner.
If the crowds are so great during these ordinary winter months, how will the Vatican cope with the estimated 30 million people who are expected to flock to Rome to celebrate the Grand Jubilee Year 2000? The new Director General is not yet ready to answer that question--at least not for the record.
The problem, Buranelli notes, is that the Vatican Museums were built at a time when mass tourism was not anticipated; the original architects and curators never dreamt of a day when oversized airliners would bring hundreds of tourists from Tokyo each day.
"The Museums are located in the Apostolic Palaces--the residence of the Pope--and they came into being for a restricted, particular use," he says. "It has been up to the popes to open them to the public, to show how much the Church has done to preserve this cultural and religious patrimony."
That, of course, does not mean the Vatican Museums cannot be adapted, so that they will be ready for these thousands of unexpected guests, and they will not be ruined by their very success. But change comes slowly in the Vatican.
Preparation for the Jubilee
Back in the 1960s, Museum officials inaugurated four color-coded tours, designed to help maintain order and ease problems associated with the steady growth of human traffic. "That was very useful, and today we should bring it up to date," Buranelli says.
The new director refuses to comment on various suggestions that have been made to help let the maximum number of people see the Vatican treasures in relative peace. He only admits that there are several such proposals still under study.
Everyone wants to see the Sistine Chapel, and that could eventually become a reservation-only item. The Vatican Museums will also be hard pressed not to expand their hours of operation, as most other world-class museums have already done. There has even been talk of building a new entrance.
There are several changes that could--and probably should--shake up the Vatican Museums in time for the year 2000. The new Director General will have his 41-year-old hands full.

Greg Burke writes for the news agency at I Media, with headquarters at the Vatican.
Museums Within Museums
A tourist visiting Rome for the first time might be surprised to learn that in the "Vatican Museums," it is not merely tradition that dictates the use of the plural "Museums." The artistic treasures of the Vatican are, by necessity, housed in a relatively small space. But those treasures are so extensive that they could be spread out over many different collections, to furnish the material for many different world-class museums.
The Vatican's art collection was begun by Pope Julius II, who brought a statue of Apollo into the Belvedere Palace in 1503. Now known as the Apollo Belvedere, this famous statue was soon joined by the equally famous Laocoön group. The art collection grew steadily until the 18th century, when it was organized into the Sacred and Profane Museums at the Apostolic Library. The Gallery of Pictures was opened in 1932, and Pope John XXIII later brought in the Christian Museum, a collection of artifacts from the catacombs which had been moved to the Lateran Palace for safekeeping.
Among the more remarkable sites within the Vatican Museums today are:
• The Sistine Chapel. Certainly the most famous spot in the Vatican collection--indeed, one of the most famous sites in the art world--the Sistine Chapel is famous for Michelangelo's magnificent Last Judgment. Commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV, the chapel was completed in 1481. Alongside Michelangelo's masterpiece it boasts frescoes by Botticelli, Perugino, and Ghirlandaio, among others.
• The Gregorian Museum of Etruscan Art. Founded by Pope Gregory XIV, this section was originally dedicated to the works being excavated in the early 19th century. The Vatican has subsequently added new acquisitions, making this one of the world's greatest collections of Etruscan art.
• Antiquarium Romanum. This relatively small collection, housed in just three rooms, contains an impressive number of objects from the world of ancient Rome.
• The Christian Museum. During excavations of the catacombs in the 19th century, this section in the Lateran Palace was designated to house the artificacts of life and worship in the early Christian community.
• The Missionary Museum of Ethnology. An enormous collection of works from all around the world, this museum examines the religious practices of civilizations on every continent, and from eras ranging from contemporary times to before the age of Christ.
• The Egyptian Museum. This collection includes mummies and sarcophagi, ceramics and cuneiform tablets, and artifacts dating back to the 8th century BC. There are also Roman statues from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.
• The Chiaramonti Museum. Named for Pope Pius VII, whose family name was Chiaramonti, this collection includes hundreds of works of Greek and Roman art (primarily statues and reliefs), and thousands of ancient artifacts (primarily inscriptions).
• The Museums of Clement XIV and Pius VI. These collections include some of the most famous pieces in the Vatican treasury, notably statutes such as the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoön group, and the Hermes.
• The Vase Collection. As the name indicates, this group includes vases, urns, and ceramic figures from the Greek and Etruscan worlds.
• The Candelabra Gallery. A loggia divided by arches and columns was enclosed in the late 18th century, during the pontificate of Pius VI. Each arch was then decorated with a candelabra, giving the section its name.
• The Tapestry Gallery. Another section finished during the pontificate of Pius VI, this gallery is decorated with priceless tapestries which were hung there in 1814.
• The Map Gallery. Here the walls are divided into several dozen panels, each of which is decorated with a map of some section of Italy.
• The Vatican Gallery of Pictures. Pope Pius VI opened a collection of paintings during his pontificate (1775-1799), but the collection was moved permanently to its current site in 1932 The gallery includes a stunning group of works from such renowned artists as Raphael, Giotto, Perugino, Van Dyck, and Leonardo da Vinci.
• The Biga Room. Built for Pope Pius VI in the late 18th century, this room is named for the Biga, a chariot from the 1st century BC which dominates the room.
• The Apartment of St. Pius V. A gallery adorned with 16th-century tapestries, and a chapel featuring frescoes by leading Italian artists of the same period, highlight this section.

• The Room of the Immaculate Conception. Frescoes by Francesco Podesti, showing different images of the Immaculate Conception, dominate this room in the Borgia Tower.
• The Raphael Rooms. This suite of four rooms has an unusually checkered artistic history. Originally constructed in the 13th century, and restored 200 years later, the rooms were being decorated in 1509 when Pope Julius II dismissed the artists and commissioned Raphael to finish their work. Although Raphael worked on the rooms for several years before his death in 1520; the extent of his influence remains in dispute.
• The Collection of Modern Religious Art. Instituted by Pope Paul VI in 1973, this enormous collection stretches across 55 different rooms. Hundreds of private collectors have contributed paintings, statues, and other works by artists such as Rodin, Klee, Chagall, Gauguin, Braque, Moore, Klee, Velasquez, Kandinsky, and Picasso.
• The Sobieski Room. As its name suggests, this room is dominated by a painting which portrays the 17th-century victory of the Polish King John III Sobieski over the Turks in Vienna.
• The Apostolic Library. To house the library originally instituted by Pope Nicholas V in the 15th century, this buildingby Domenico Fontana was commissioned by Sixtus V at the end of the 16th century.
• The Gregorian Musum of Profane Art. Opened in 1970, this special building houses Roman and Greek works, especially sculptures and other works from the days of the Roman republic.
• The Carriage Pavilion. Set up under the guidance of Pope Paul VI in 1973, this section includes the vehicles--from horse-drawn carriages to modern automobiles--that have been used by popes and leading cardinals. Also included are photographs of vehicular processions in Rome.