I can consider, with good reason, the Vatican Museums as an office, where a tour guide in Rome like me spends a lot of his time. But it is always nice to focus not only on the grandiose wonders, such as the Sistine Chapel, but also on apparently secondary environments which, in reality, have an unparalleled charm. Think about the detail of the vault and showcase of a small jewel of the Vatican Museums, the photo of which you see here. I'm talking about the Chapel of San Pietro Martire, which I am now going to describe to you.

Immediately after the Sistine Chapel show, continuing along the specific route inside the Vatican Museums, you will arrive in one of the three chapels commissioned by pope Pius V in the mid of the sixteenth century. For this reason, the creation and design of this environment was entrusted to Giorgio Vasari while, especially as regards the precious stuccoes that embellish and frame the figures of the saints and sacred episodes, it was his pupil Jacopo Zucchi who worked, using his artistic genius. A chapel that seems incredibly delicate but full, at the same time, thanks to its stuccos interspersed with frescoes that push you to stay for hours and hours with your nose turned up. It must be said, however, that since the advent of pope Pius from the Sancta Sanctorum, the chapel of the ancient papal seat in the Lateran, containing incredible relics (you can find out more here). Everything you see was found in 1905, and placed in what was defined as the Patriarchy (the official seat of the bishop of Rome in the Lateran area and the actual temporal seat of the pontificate in Rome for many centuries) even from the end of the thirteenth century, when pope Nicholas III sealed everything under the altar.

This valuable chapel, therefore, can in some way be considered a treasure chest full of real treasures, including a 6th century reliquary from Syria, frescoed with images of Christmas and Easter (among the first in the world). Or the so-called Enameled Cross of Paschal I, another reliquary dating back to the 9th century AD which would have had, inside, fragments of the True Cross (some of which are in St. Peter 's Basilica and others in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme). Do you understand why, ultimately, visiting the Vatican Museums means taking a journey back in time? Between sixteenth-century chapels and wonderful reliquaries, coming from what was the historic seat of the papacy in Rome, there really is something for all tastes. Don't you believe too?