Night at the Vatican.

The original buildings were meant for the personal use of the pope, and in places encompass a confusing warren of small rooms and narrow staircases that were never intended to receive 7 million visitors a year. Features At the Vatican Museums, the nightly ritual of the keys begins in Room 49A, a tight, windowless chamber, generally referred to as il bunker, which I entered one evening last November from a grassy courtyard as rain began to fall. Michelangelo came to this place to study the Belvedere Torso, a marble dating to the first century B.C. He thought of the torso - its arms missing, its legs cut off at the knees - as his "teacher" and used the taut anatomy in his portrayal of Adam on the Sistine Chapel's ceiling. Later, another door opened, near the Sistine Chapel's altar, and a man stood silhouetted in a bright rectangle: He was standing at the entrance to the Room of Tears. [Extracted from the article]