Nah, it's actually listed as priceless:


In a rare disclosure last July, a Vatican accountant said the net patrimony, or the Vatican's real estate holdings, are assessed at a relatively modest $908 million and that such properties as St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel are priceless, listed at a symbolic 1 euro.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... h_finances


Indeed they are! Michelangelo, Bernini, and so much more! No place in the world holds so many treasures in so 'small' a space! No British Museum, no Louvre, no anything! I wonder if Florence and Venice would be marked as priceless as well.


Also, the Vatican's library holds manuscripts that are priceless as well, but historically have tremendous significance. And it's not only Christian artifacts and texts, but Jewish texts, Muslim texts, and much more. Many of them are available in only one copy, thats it.


Btw, I'm pretty positive that annual revenues for the church are at least $90-100B. Just in terms of property, they have tremendous assets worldwide.

How much of a price can you put on an archeological site? That's like putting a value on the Pyramids. The manuscripts, paintings, and Vatican collections can be bought and sold. The biblioteque nationale in Paris is probably considered more valueable in those respects. Its everything that is specific to the site that gives it a sense of value in the way the Louvre (the building itself) can still have a price on its head.

I'll agree with all the architecture, architectural decoration (like the sistine chapel, berninis scallia, anything of that nature) but what's ultimately priceless is the necropolis below the old church. I've been down there three times and there really is no way to describe it (as far as I can that is).

I have never been to Rome, so I'm not sure if you are referring to the catacombs? Or is it a separate entity?

And I agree that archeological sites, anywhere, are beyond a price range.

I'm not sure about some manuscripts, I can imagine some being priceless.


I mean, Jesus' diary would be priceless, no?


Btw dolce, did you know that there are only 2 original manuscripts of Dante's Commedia? One is in Milan, the other is in....Mumbai. Yeah, Mussolini offered them 1 million pounds sterling, convinced that they could not refuse such an offer.


They shut the door in his face and kept it :razz:


So yeah, if anyone wants to buy me a gift... :razz:

Does such a thing exist or are you speaking hypotheticals?? is this a conspiracy theory? *lost*

Mussolini wasn't the brightest guy on the block. Napoleon would have just taken it without asking.

No, not the catacombs. They are distinctly different. I'm going to kill everyone here with this because I've studied it, and its probably at the foundations of why I went into pre-renaissance art history, but here it goes.

The catacombs are a certain type of burial that can only occur in places where the rock is soft until being exposed to air. There are three (four) major catacombs in rome, where the rock was soft enough to dig into (underground) before it hardened (hence why its still so stable today).

The vatican hill is not one of those spots. The ground there is notoriously loose and the Vatican has had Leaning Tower of Pisa-esque problems with foundation stability because of it.

Prior to Old St. Peters (about 200 b.c.) it was the pleasrue palace of agrippina. it was eventually passed down to the hands of Nero, who famously fiddled while Rome burned to the ground in 64 a.d. That was when he rounded up all the christians and burned them at his circus there. Scapegoats. Amongst those people was St. Peter. The obelisk still at the front of the Vatican stood at the center of that circus at the time, so if you think about what that is a monument to. Its experienced 2 centuries of history, and is actually the oldest thing remaining from that site.

After Nero was driven out, the area went into neglect and became a Christian burial ground (beginning with those who were killed there in 64). It was an above ground one, not a necropolis. Anyone who has seen these old graveyards they are comprised of mausolea, etc. Necropolis literally means city of the dead, and its because all these stone monuments (with street paths and everything) were erected there to bury the Christians. It was outside of the central city walls, which is why it was allowed (dead had to be buried outside of city limits). St. Peter was buried there.

Anyways, when Constantine came in 312 he wanted a church built on top of st. peter's grave. the grave was halfway up the hill. They pretty much bulldozed everything above it, and filled with sand everything below it, in order to make a level foundation for the church. That is why it was preserved so well, because of the sand. It wasn't exposed to the elements, etc. There are some paintings in the family tombs there, some of the oldest mosaics, the first ones depicting jesus. very complicated, trust me he looks nothing like he does now. very interesting to study the visual representation of him from his roots. He used to ride a chariot (like apollo) and wear a wreath of wineleaves (like baucus).

Anyways, the old church pretty much fell apart by 1400 when they brought in Bramante to start designing the new one. They didn't eliminate the entire old church, but left its foundations, raised the floor a couple feet, and started the new one above it. Anyone who has been there, the floor of the grotto is actually the old church. The grotto is those couple feet in between the new church floor and the old one where all the popes are buried.

Michelangelo took over after Bramante, and after him during the counter-reformation Carlos Moderna did. After that, Bernini. By that time people had forgotten that there was a necropolis under the grottos. It was discovered when one of the pope's coffins (?) was to big for the niche assigned to it. They sent a work crew down there to work on the niche, and one of the workmen fell through the floor. When you go to the necropolis you they show you the hole where the worlman fell through.

They've only excavated about 1/16th of the necropolis due to the fact that it is, actually, the foundation of the church. If they remove more dirt from other areas, than they sacrifice the integrity of the foundation if you catch my drift. But the rooms they have excavated are breathtaking. Some of the colors, especially in the room of the egyptians have been retained due to the sand preserving them. imprints of mosaic chips that fell away in another room still leave the original image, etc.

Anyways, that's actually the short of it.

Do you have any pics of these areas Dolce? Or of the first jesus pics??

I don't personally. They don't allow pictures down there due to how sensetive the stuff is. Only let in about 70 people a day, which is nothing for a tourist realted thing. They don't really promote it, i just new about it in advance from studying the site. See if this helps:




The top image is the new church, the pink middle layer is the grottos (those are open access to the public) and the blue is the necropolis. The bottom is the layout of what has been excavated of the necropolis. You'll notice a path down the middle of it, that's the dirt road. Remember originally this was above ground, and functioned just like a mini pompeii sort of. The rooms you see are individual family chambers. They have outside walls (just like houses) and you look through the doors inside. Some of them are even two floors since families used to celebrate a lunch when visiting their dead ancestors.

I've been trying to google image search some pics and haven't been successful yet. If you like I can recommend a book that i'm sure uoft library has.

LOOTERS!

Yes please

Dolce you are just making me want to go on my 2006 eurotrip even more \:D/ I hope i can go..

Found a pic!!!!!!!

Well, much of it was specifically made for the Vatican, including Michelangelo's work.

As for the manuscripts, etc., it's likely it was looted somewhere on its way into their hands, but I'm not sure if their involvement was direct. After all, the church is nearly 2,000 years old, and held a position of power for an extremely long time. 'Gifts' here and there would have been almost demanded.


If you want real looters, check out them Brits. Greece still hasn't mended fences with them.

Is that the entrance to the necropolis itself or one of the tombs down there?

I'm talking about the Catholic Church in general, not just the Vatican City. I think people tend to forget that in a lot of countries people still get taxed on behalf of the church.

Oh, taxes again, ok. I just remembered your stance on the issue :razz:


I'm against the church taxing, obviously.

And I'm not sure if they need it. Their problem has been that they haven't been good in recruiting priests and nuns. In Mexico, there's just one per 10,000 people! No wonder they're losing sheep to them portestants! Outrageous! And so on!


Em, yeah, much of the area surrounding the city of Rome is owned by the Vatican. That area alone is worth billions!

Letys not be too nice to them. They robbed the Jews blind in WWII. On the plus side, at least they preserved it, and I have a funny feeling John Paul had all of his personal papers destroyed rather than archived because I know for a fact the vatican has been trying to deal with questions of releasing all the manuscripts without drawing attention to the fact they had them in the first place.

Oscar, I ran a search for you at UofT library for Charles McClendon. he was my professor and did a piece specifically title "The History of the Site of St. Peter's, Rome" Perspecta 25 (1989): 33-65 I can't get onto your online journal databases because I'm not a student there. but next time you're there give it a try and see what comes up. He's a great writer. built intrigue into each lecture, and its only about 30 pages. Very Fascintaing. If you go in 2006, let me know ahead of time. Booking for the necropolis requires going through the ufficio dei scavi a good month to six week in advance.

Picture this. You're already in the necropolis. That's the "road" you walk by, and the walls and doors you see are the entrances into the individual burial chambers for families. Basically where you are standing used to be exposed to daylight, and you just had these houses/buildings to all sides of you. I hope I'm making sense?

Can you elaborate on that bolded statement Dolce? I'm a bit lost. Which manuscripts? Why would htey bring attention.

Also i'll search for the book now

That seems shit scary LOL

Did the church directly steal it or did the people steal it and then sold it or gave it to the church? I'm sure this is controversial, as everyone stole as much from the Jews as they could, but I wonder if there's a way to have some clear idea of what went on. Obviously, I don't expect most cases to be solved or be solved satisfactorily. I don't think it matters in the end anyways.


My views on the manuscripts?

Make 100 million copies, scan it and put it online, and give the original to whoever wants it. It's just a piece of old paper, what's the point? The knowledge is what counts, and that, well that better be shared with as many people as possible.

But who am I kidding? It's not likely to happen. :???:

I had a similar experience in Vienna's catacombs.

Basically, there's a huge chamber with 4,000 corpses of people who died during the Bubonic Plague. The way to it is dark, and there are encalves in it.

Well, my friend thought it would be fun to push me into one of those, right after our guide told us that those were preserved for more dead people, and that not all of them were fully accounted for (apparently, heh).

And if that wasn't enough, there's a window into which you peer to watch the chamber with the corpses. My friend proceeded to push me forward so that my head got stuck and all I could see were 4,000 corpses around me.





Our friendship ceased to be that day. :bur:

The Vatican has always really had a reverence for Jewish texts, due to the fact that its the origin of chritianity. too bad that didn't carry over to the people, heh. During WWII all of the wealthiest synagogues in Europe were outright destroyed. Before then Nazis, others, did a good job of cleaning them out of all their religious objects. This included alot of ancient biblical artifacts, manuscripts by great jewish scholars and theologians, etc. On one hand, at least they didn't burn them. The Vatican shacked them up in the basement, and to this day all the archives of that decade have pretty much been sealed and are inaccessable to researchers, etc.

Well they've been trying to deal with the fact they have all these texts. There are two things one could do at this point, return them to the public, or destroy evidence you ever had them because its incriminating. At least the Vatican is opting for the former choice. But they don't really want to draw attention to the fact they've had them in the first place. They've been entertaining alot of different ways to slowly release the manuscripts and artifacts back into the hands of museums, research institutions, synangogues, etc. Very slowly. they haven't actually done much yet, but they're being cautious about not leaving a paper trail that leads back to their actions during WWII.

This post should be relocated to the porn thread

Omg.. that's horrible. Your friend sounds a lot like one of my friends. He pushed me into the Brass Rail (for non-torontonians a stripjoint downtown)... I was like 15 at the time.

Did the Vatican request those texts? How did they get into their hands? Via local churches?


Did the church request the texts from the Nazis and citizens in order to protect them from destruction?


Or did they order the destruction of the buildings and the looting itself?

Also, I wonder if they kept a record of how those texts got into their hands.


Goodness, that stuff would be of tremendous worth to Jewish scholars. Far more so than to Christians.

HOw do you guys know so much?? Is there like a book about information that not a lot of people know that will shock you?

I should seriously read more.

Uh, I think it's pretty common knowledge that the pope handled himself poorly and was in cohorts with Hitler. John Paul tried his best to apologize a few years ago and it was a big deal. The apology wasn't much, since popes are never allowed to be wrong, so JP had to say the pope was right, but that the highest ranked cardinals and the pope's inner circle were corrupt and unethical, and took the popes intentions to manipulate for their own use. Many were mad at this sort of lack of acknowledgement of "Hitler's Pope," but I figured it was one step better than anyone else to the point had done.

They didn't get them from smaller churchees, and while they're primary concern was to preserve the texts (hence why they aren't ruining them now) it was to preserve the text for themselves, not for the jews. They just wanted to get their hands on manuscripts that are considered very important to the history of christianity. I'm pretty damn sure they worked directly with Hitler. Got shipments of stuff from the Nazi's in exchange for not condemning Nazi actions, and the pope at the imte went for it.

They did keep the records. The Vatican and the Nazis were both institutions of meticulous accession documents. That's why the archives for that decade are officially sealed. no one knows what's in them, not even contemporary government institutions. They're off limits and this is no doubt part of the reason why.