I studied art history for years but was breathless when I saw the Sistine Chapel and the Pieta for real. We did bring opera glasses to the Sistine Chapel and were lucky enough to get a seat on the long row of benches along the wall so we could take our time looking at it. I had never realized it was so three-dimensional. You feel like you can just reach up and touch a little bare foot.

The Pieta made me weepy. I'm not a Christian but when I looked at it, all I could think of was a mother and her dead son. Her hand is held out in such a posture that just says how could this terrible thing happen? I know a woman whose fine 23-year-old son was murdered when a store he was working in was robbed and she filled my mind while I was looking at the Pieta. A mother is a mother, after all.

Also, there's a statue of St. Barbara in St. Peters. I don't know anything about St. Barbara but it was fascinating to me. The fact that stone can be made to look like sheer fabric draped over a knee or bunched up at an elbow is amazing to me.

The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci) and Il David (Michelangelo). They took my breath away when I first saw them.

bkm

Actaully, since Jesus and Mary were Jewish, The Pieta is a depiction of a Jewish mother and son. I don't know what Christianity has to do with it.

Well, yes (and as everyone knows so, whew! we're impressed with your biblical acumen), Mary and Jesus were Jewish. On the other hand, everyone else seems to be aware that Mary and Jesus have, what? how shall I explain it -- some sort of loosey-goosey connection to Christianity?

If you're not yet aware of that, you might want to consider reading Constantine's Sword by James Carroll.

Well, I'm only guessing but I would think that when Jesus "converted" to Christianity it made all the difference.