Nicole Harris- Senior Mechanical Engineer

 

Today our class visited the Vatican Museum, which included paintings, sculptures, mosaics, and lots of awe. My favorite part of this day was looking at the cars/ wagons the pope used to ride in. These vehicles ranged from carriages to Mercedes Benz! Not to mention all of them were extravagant and you could tell someone important rode in them. The engineering that just went into the mechanics of the carriages must have been very detailed in order to ensure that not only the pope was safe, but the vehicle could be moved efficiently and safely. I also really liked all the artwork at the beginning, there were so many paintings of so many different sizes I wasn’t sure where to look first, and this also continued throughout the museum. Every single painting told the viewer a story and it was fun to try to interpret what the artist was conveying to its audience and how that was important in those times. Some of these paintings were larger than life and took up an entire wall! Some had to be in special cases to have them preserved with temperature and light control. Most of these paintings had a style to them that I had a brief knowledge of because I took art history. The way they painted to include dimension, size and general picture was incredibly intricate and amazing. Another highlight of this day was the hallway of maps. On both walls there were maps of countries all up and down. I thought this was especially cool because they didn’t have half the technology we have today and still came up with extremely accurate and detailed maps. Near the end of the museum there were 2 full size maps with what the people back then thought the world looked like which was also crazy because only half of North America had been outlined and most edges were straight. A very cool day looking at everything and learning about this history and engineering!