© Roberto Alborghetti
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Before my recent private encounter with Pope Francis for the presention of the biography I wrote about him, I had the way to visit some of the beautiful rooms in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City; as we know, Pope Francis doesn’t live there, but in the unpretencious house, Casa Santa Marta, where I met him.
I been firstly on the incredible Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Scala Regia ( Royal Staircase) which is a flight of steps and part of the formal entrance to the Vatican. It was built by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger in the early 16th century, to connect the Apostolic Palace to St. Peter’s Basilica, and restored by Gian Lorenzo Bernini from 1663 to 1666.
The site for the stairs, a comparatively narrow sliver of land between church and palace, is awkwardly shaped with irregular converging walls. Bernini used a number of typically theatrical, baroque effects in order to exalt this entry point into Vatican. The staircase proper takes the form of a barrel-vaulted colonnade that necessarily becomes narrower at the end of the vista, exaggerating the distance. Above the arch at the beginning of this vista is the coat of arms of Alexander VII, flanked by two sculpted angels.
(1 – TO BE CONTINUED)
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ROBERTO ALBORGHETTI 
Robert, I can’t wait to see how you are going to implement this experience in your amazing art work.
Thank you so much Cornelia for your kind comment. Yes, me too I wonder your same question… But I have no answer. I think the better is …to fly into the air or into the wave…
These photos take me right back to the Vatican. One of my history teachers once told me, “If you want to know what Nero’s Golden House looked like…go to the Vatican Museum. Grazie Roberto. molto buono e splendido!
Thank you so much Lanier! I think in Vatican there’s an extraordinary concentration of art which was preserved along Centuries and now it is offered to the world as a tribute to human creativity.
What a fabulous experience. Beautiful photos
Spectacular!
Thank you so much Debra! Yes, joy for eyes and mind!
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