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.
Product Description
Take a personal tour through the Vatican City State through the panorama surrounding you in this updated edition with 128 pages and 63 color photographs. See St. Peter's Basilica and its famous Square, the Pontifical palaces with frescoes done by the great masters of Italian Renaissance, the Vatican Museums with the famous Raphael Rooms, the Nicolina Chapel, the marvelous Sistine Chapel with the restored Michelangelo frescoes and a view of the Vatican Gardens.
