SHHH, don't tell anyone

This afternoon I ventured outside the Vatican into the heart of Rome.  Strolled down the Corso, the main street, to the Capitoline Museum.  Here on the Hill there has been a lot of positive buzz about an exhibit there called "Lux in Arcana", a rare once in a lifetime exhibit and it closes on Sunday.  It is 100 original documents covering 12 centuries from the Vatican Secret Archives.  These have never left the Vatican City-State before this exhibit.  There was the signed testimony of Galileo Galilee, the Emperor's Condemnation of Martin Luther, the letter from the English Bishop's urging the Pope to grant Henry VIII his Annulment from Catherine of Aragon with a veiled threat to the Pope!!  There was a letter from Erasmus of Rotterdam.  Sitting in a case together were letters from President Abraham Lincoln and President Jefferson Davis responding to the Pope's appeal that the States reach a Peace in the Civil War - Davis basically say's, "Lincoln first" and then tell your clergy to tell Lincoln to surrender!  There was a letter from Chinese Empress who converted to Catholicism asking the Pope to write the new Emperor of China asking him to tolerate Catholicism and it took 6 years for the reply to reach China, alas she had already died 5 years and six months prior.  There was a code book to send messages to the Spanish.  There was the Papal Bull excommunicating Luther.  There were all kinds of neat things in the collection and interesting facts.  You can check it out at: www.luxinarcana.org
After the exhibit I toured the Capitoline Museum which has a rather impressive collection of Republican and Imperial Roman marble memorials and statutes.  The original statute of the Emperor Hadrian seated on his war horse that once sat in the piazza of the Museum (there is modern copy in the piazza now) is nicely displayed in a modern setting that actually does it justice.  It was spared being melted down by the Popes because they thought it was a statue of the Emperor Constantine, it is the only large Equestrian bronze to survive antiquity.  Across the room is a giant bronze head, foot and hand of the Emperor Constantine.  Lots of good stuff if you are a history buff.
I could have stayed till closing at 8pm but had already missed the afternoon travel presentation, Evening Prayer, Cocktails and was on the verge of missing dinner!  Got lost going home which of course is half the fun of being in Rome cause you get to see interesting things but as we say in the USA, "my dogs were barking", my feet were sore!  Speaking of Dogs I forgot to mention that on Alitalia on the way over there was a Canina in Coach, that's Italian for a small dog!  Yup, it had it's own seat and was none to happy to travel in Coach!!!  Ok, no pictures tonight maybe tomorrow, I did not bring the camera.