This richly illustrated book contains memorable information about the Vatican through pictures and concise and clearly written historical documentation. The book's contents guide the reader through the Vatican Museums, the Vatican Library, the Papal Palaces and Saint Peter's Basilica, highlighting the art, architecture and history.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
These modestly priced, adhesive-bound, made-for-tourist paperbacks are typically offered in a dozen different languages in the same shops that carry plastic pietas and Sistine Chapel slide sets at the Vatican. Papafava's Vatican incorporates a large-type text with scores of photographs, reproductions of art works, diagrams, and details, some with instructive captions. Photographs of the restored Sistine Chapel ceiling, including foldouts and several close-ups, are satisfactory. The work concludes with a single-page bibliography and a list of the popes mentioned in the guide. Roncalli, former director of Italo-Etruscan antiquities in the Vatican museums, covers the same 110 acres as the work above, this time in rambling, multipage paragraphs that highlight features and history. Nearly half of the volume deals with the Vatican museums, whose paintings and murals are unfortunately represented in washed-out or blurred photographs. Sculpture and the gardens fare marginally better. A single-page list of artists is included at the end. Overall, these translations are rife with misspellings, historical inaccuracies, choppy phrasings, and frequently unintelligible text. They make better souvenirs than library purchases. Libraries strengthening their foreign travel sections are better served by established travel industry guides such as those by Michelin and Fodor's; in this instance, consider the video Vatican, Fortress of Christianity (Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 1994).?Russell T. Clement, Univ. of Tennessee Lib., Knoxville
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The following paragraph is taken from page 14 of Vatican.
The reasons which led the Popes to collect works of art in the 18th century were very different from the reasons that motivated their predecessors in the 16th century. In the 18th century their main aim was to put a stop to the sale abroad of works of art and to organize collections in public buildings so as to offer the public an opportunity to see them; whereas in earlier times the Popes had acquired works of art purely for reasons of aesthetic pleasure or in order to decorate palaces and gardens. The new policy was a government action aimed at safeguarding public property, rather than the expression of a ruler who wanted to increase the prestige of an institution.
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