[Elfsea] Vatican Museum

[Damon and Christine Huse]

I ran across this and thought everyone might enjoy seeing this...

Musei Vaticani

http://www.christusrex.org/www1/vaticano/0-Musei.html

"The founding of the Vatican Museums can be traced back to 1503 when the
newly-elected Pope, Julius II della Rovere, placed a statue of Apollo in the
internal courtyard of the Belvedere Palace built by Innocent VIII; he
brought the statue from the garden of his titular church of St. Peter in
Chains. In 1506 the Laocoon was added to the collection, after its discovery
on the Esquiline Hill before the eyes of Giuliano di Sangallo and
Michelangelo Buonarroti.
Scores of artifacts were added throughout the next two centuries and the
collections were eventually reorganized under Benedict XIV (1740-1758) and
Clement XIII (1758-1769). They founded the Apostolic Library Museums: the
Sacred (Museo Sacro - 1756) and the Profane (Museo Profano - 1767).
The Christian Museum, comprising finds from the catacombs that could not be
conserved in situ, was founded by Pius IX in 1854 in the Lateran Palace and
was moved to the Vatican Museums by Pope John XXIII.
Pope Pius XI inaugurated in 1932 the definitive seat of the Vatican Picture
Gallery (the Pinacoteca), near the monumental entrance of the Vatican
Museums."

Maria