Photos

Tags

PM, pope, Sistine Chapel, Trudeau, Vatican

Yesterday I got a newsletter from the Canadian Club Of Rome, we use to be members when we lived there, lots of nice activities for Canadians living in Italy.

This caught my eye, the Embassy of Canada to Italy not to be confused with the Embassy of Canada to the Holy See (Vatican), is participating in Gay Pride 2017.

Here is a promotional photo taken in the garden of the Chancery of the Embassy on Via Salaria with the staff and the Ambassador holding up the letter D.

They will have a float for the parade which starts at Piazza Repubblica and winds down into the centre of the City.

Today our Prime Minister met with the Pope at the Apostolic Palace for 42 minutes, one on one and many topics were discussed. Sophie Grégoire his spouse joined them for the photo afterwards in the Office of the Pope. The Prime Minister then walked around the Palace which in itself is a museum (not open to the public) and is attached to the famous Sistine Chapel built in 1473. Everyone was smiling on the photos and you could see a good rapport between the Pontiff and Trudeau. The Pope was invited by Trudeau to visit Canada.

Photo courtesy of the CBC. It is rare to see the chapel so empty, it was closed to allow the couple to visit quietly. The Prime Minister then gave his press conference in the beautiful and vast gardens of the Vatican. I once visited the chapel with just 10 other people on a private tour, it beats being in the chapel with the multitudes. Our guide explained the various figures and pointed out that God the Father stands above in the centre of the ceiling wearing a diaphanous pink like toga mooning us. Perhaps a little artistic liberty Michelangelo took with the topic while painting The Last Judgement ceiling between 1508-12, apparently Pope Julius II did not say a word about it. The Sistine Chapel also known as Cappella Magna took its name from Pope Sixtus IV.  The architects were Giovannino de Dolci and Baccio Pontelli.

During the reign of Sixtus IV, a team of Renaissance painters that included Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Roselli, created a series of frescos depicting the Life of Moses and the Life of Christ, offset by papal portraits above and trompe oeil drapery below. These paintings were completed in 1482, and on 15 August 1483 Sixtus IV celebrated the first mass in the Sistine Chapel for the Feast of the Assumption, at which ceremony the chapel was consecrated and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.