Official Tour Brochures for Vatican Museums, Papal Palace, St. Peter’s Basilica

Description

Official tourist maps & guides for some of the principle institutions within the Vatican, the world’s smallest sovereign state (120 acres; 450 residents) that is the seat of power for the Roman Catholic Church, the world’s largest religion (1.35 billion followers).
Includes a foldout map & guide for the Vatican Museums, the public museums of Vatican City (including the Sistine Chapel and the Stanze di Raffaello), displaying some of the 70,000 works of art amassed by the Catholic Church over the last two millennia (including some by such Renaissance masters as Giotto, Bellini, da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Veronese and Caravaggio) as well as the Papal Palace (also known as the Apostolic Palace), the official residence of the head of the Catholic Church, the Pope (including the Papal Apartments, private and public chapels of the Holy See, the Vatican Library and the Sala Regia (from Scala, 1993); and an official foldout brochure for the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican, or simply Saint Peter’s Basilica, the primary church within the Vatican, a brilliant piece of Renaissance architecture (designed by Michelangelo and Bernini), built in honor of the first pope and one of Jesus’ 12 apostles. It is the sight of papal liturgies that attract large crowds both within the church (having the largest interior of any church in the world) and in adjoining Saint Peter’s Square (from ATS Italia Editrice SRL, 2000).