Sistine Chapel

The Sistine Chapel is much in the news these days.  Even though you can’t get in to see it because of the papal election process taking place right now inside the Chapel, there are ways to explore the space and its famous frescoes virtually.  Try, for instance, this 360 degree image of the Chapel or commentary on the famous frescoes from the Vatican Museums.

The image here is from a brief article on the papal conclave, the closed-door election process.  There are a number of infographics on how a new Pope gets elected that place the Sistine Chapel in context.  Here’s a 2009 infographic from Maga Design, a current one from image-illustration.net, and a series from Catholic News Agency that focuses more on who’s doing the voting than where the voting is taking place.

A couple of sustainable facts about Vatican City – in 2007 it stated its intention to become the first carbon-neutral state (it’s also the smallest state in the world), a largely symbolic move since it is fulfilling the requirements via an offset and it had a photovoltaic solar roof installed in 2008.  It’s said to be the ‘Greenest State in the World’ because of these and other measures to reduce energy use.