Our trip to Italy had started on some high notes – a Sunday soccer match and a great first meal.  After a deep, long, wonderful, jet lag induced sleep, our Monday in Rome got off to a planned later day start.  We had entrance tickets for 1pm at the Vatican Museums to give us plenty of time to sleep.  On that note, take it from me (and a host of other easily found information online) – buy your Vatican tickets in advance online.  There’s a surcharge, but it saved us from at least two hours standing in line waiting to get in.  We walked past an enormous line the likes of which I had never seen before, and right into the museum.

My art and painting interests lie more toward the modern end of the spectrum, so the trip through the Vatican Museums was more about seeing a few of the high points and not getting too bogged down in the details (of some truly amazing art… just not my particular cup of tea).  One of the first stops was these three Raffaelo works, in particular, the middle one – “Transfiguration”:

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