Inside the Vatican Museums: Episode trailer

Here’s a sneak peak at episode one of Museum Secrets, our series that travels to the most extraordinary museums on Earth to reveal the stories behind some of their most irreplaceable treasures and hidden spaces.

Watch the trailer for Inside the Vatican Museums.

In our first episode we visit the magnificent Vatican Museums in Rome, where we gain exclusive access to one of the most sacred places in Christianity, the Sistine Chapel…and build a scaffold 14 meters up to the ceiling to discover the secret of Michelangelo’s genius and why he feuded with the Pope.

And if you think graffiti only happens in modern times, think again – we hunt for the vandals who defaced a Raphael masterpiece with graffiti during the Sack of Rome, an epic battle that saw the massacre of the Swiss Guard and a Pope fleeing for his life.

Nudity and art censorship - all old, but still highly relevant themes - are explored when we reveal the motivations behind the people who put fig leaves over the penises of nude sculptures. Then, in a story about the power of perception, we gain access to the secret Vatican Archives and uncover the true story of the Knights Templar, learning how they fell from such great power to their tremendous demise.

For fans of Egyptology, we’ve also got you covered – you’ll have to watch the episode to find out why a Vatican scientist took an Egyptian mummy to a modern hospital.

Finally, we examine one of the most famous statues of all time that depicts an ancient Greek man under attack by snakes. Is this sculpture authentic from antiquity, or a clever forgery by Michelangelo? Read the next blog posts in the coming week to learn more about this ancient Greek sculpture and why some experts think it might be a fake.