In the Hall of the Muses are the statues of the nine Muses in the Hellenistic style of the III century B.C. from a villa at Tivoli. There are also portraits of personalities from the Greek world, Socrates, Sophocles, Plato, etc. all copied by the Romans from the original Greek works. There are no many Greek originals in the Vatican; one of the few is the so-called "Torso Belvedere". The statue of the Torso bears the signature of a greek sculptor from Athens, Apollonios, son of Naestor; it is probably part of a fighting figure of Hercules. It was discovered in the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla and Michelangelo was most impressed by its powerful, perfect anatomy and refused to restore it, as he had been requested to do by the Pope.
The Round Hall contains a porphyry bowl in the center, from the ruins of Nero's Golden House. On the floor is a large mosaic work from Otricoli, a place 40 miles from Rome. Also to be found in this room is the head of Jupiter, from Otricoli, attributed to Briaxis, IV century B.C. and numerous statues of Ceasers and pagan gods, the colossal, gilded bronze statue representing Hercules; and there is Antinous, the favourite of Hadrian.
The Hall of the Greek Cross where there are two magnificent porphyry sarcophagy from the IV century A.D. originally the coffins of St. Elena, mother of Constantine, the one with the battle scenes; the other is of Constance, the Emperor's daughter. On the floor is large mosaic from Roman times.
We are going to omit entirely the other sculpture galleries, and, returning the same way we came, we reach the Sala della Biga, ( the room of the Chariot), so named from a chariot with two horses, a marble work probably of the II century A.D., reconstructed from ancient fragments. In the same room are copies of Greek statues, the Discus Thrower (Discobulus) by Myron, V century B.C. The original was in bronzeand does not exist any more; the best copy we have in Rome is the Lancellotti copy, in the Thermae Museum. We cross the gallery of the Candelabra, where you find some more interesting copies of Greek originals, mainly from the Hellenistic period, several urns and coffins from old Roman graves and the beautiful candelabra.
We pass into the Gallery of the Tapestries which houses a fine collection of original Gobelines, woven in Brussels in the XVI century. The cartoons were drawn by the disciples of Raphael and represent scenes from the life of Christ. On the opposite wall are the tapestries woven in Rome in the XVII century, depicting events from the life of Pope Urban VIII.
Gallery of Geographic Maps. The geographic maps, executed ca. 1580-83, are the work of Father Ignazio Danti of Perugia, a mathematician, cosmographer and architect. They represents the various regions of Italy with views and plans of the most important cities. The late XVI century ceiling is by G. Muziano and his pupils. Following is the Gallery of St. Pius V, with two large XV century Flemish tapestries, from which we enter the Sobieski Room, so called after the large painting by J.A. Mateiko (1883) depicting the liberation of Vienna from Turks.
The Room of the Immaculate Conception was frescoed by Francesco Podesti (1858) representing the drafting and proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
