Continuing with the Vatican Museum tour, here’s some video and stills from the Hall of Maps. These maps were commissioned by the Pope to make an accurate renderings of various areas. Here’s the video where they turn on the lights first thing in the morning:
Here are some still photos that show some detail, including this view of Italy:
The person standing on the left gives a sense of scale. Here’s another map, this time of Venice. There will be some posts about Venice here on the blog later.
The maps contain insets of various town and cities as you see next:
And another example here:
More to come in the next post.
Yes, those are the keys actually used to unlock all the doors. Of course, the museum holds artifacts from many eras of history, including Egyptian pieces like this tablet:
There are plenty of Roman objects as well, literally huge rooms full of them:
Including this magnificent sculpture:
And this bathtub of an empress:
Must have been a ladder to get in and out of that thing. More posts to come, showing the Hall of Maps and other marvels. Check back often!
You can see their size relative to the people and car on the right. Then was this passenger vehicle:
Look at it compare to the bicycle on the right. Here’s a colorful variation:
The roof is actually lower than the top of the windscreen on the scooters. And as you can see more clearly in the next photo, it’s a pop top.
I’m sure they get great mileage and are just enough to get you where you want to go and keep the weather off. Be careful.
The building itself is actually quite small and the rooms for clients tiny. On the walls were painted advertisements for various services:
A potential client need not speak the local language, simply point and agree to the price.
The clever Romans knew how to do business and seemed to have thought of everything. In the next post, we’ll take a look at a snack stand.
The Bent Page 
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