KEY POINTS:
Just behind us in the queue for the Sistine Chapel, which snaked its way around the towering walls that protect the Vatican City and its treasures, was a young man wearing a Superman T-shirt.
I couldn't help wondering whether he knew, as he waited with the rest of us to see Michelangelo's frescoes on the chapel ceiling, that the idea of the flying superhero actually originated in those 500-year-old pictures.
Fanciful? Not according to Andrew Graham-Dixon's Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, $53), which I had taken on the trip to get some insight into the masterpiece.
Describing the amazing panel depicting the creation, Graham-Dixon says: "There was no precedent in earlier Christian art for Michelangelo's dynamic airborne deity swooping through an implied infinity of space."
Later artists, Graham-Dixon notes, copied such innovations in both fine art and comic strips.
"The character of Superman has his origins, as a graphic creation, in the airborne God who flies majestically across the Sistine Chapel."
The youthful Superman fan probably didn't realise that Clark Kent owed a debt to the Sistine Chapel, but there's no doubt that the reason we were prepared to queue for an hour or more to see Michelangelo's work is as much due to the extraordinary innovations he brought to the task - both artistic and technical - as it is to their sheer artistic power.
My wife and I had actually waited 36 years to see the Sistine Chapel, because the last time we were in Rome it was closed for renovations and shortly afterwards family responsibilities called a halt to our travelling.
Naturally, we were happy enough to wait a wee bit longer in order to tick off one of our lifetime ambitions and the festive atmosphere in the queue seemed to indicate that everyone else felt the same way.
It was the sort of camaraderie I've previously experienced queuing to get into All Black or Manchester United games and it did occur to me that - though culture-vultures may be appalled by the suggestion - there are similarities between matches that represent the peak of sporting prowess and a work that took five years to complete, and has ever since been hailed as one of the peaks of human creativity.
Despite our sky-high expectations, once we got inside we were not disappointed. In fact, it would have been worth the wait just to see the incredible display of treasures in the rooms leading to the chapel, never mind the famous ceiling itself.
As we shuffled slowly along, our pace governed by the movement of the crowd, we found ourselves passing through a series of huge halls with magnificently painted ceilings, each displaying artefacts from the Vatican's collections: huge tapestries depicting biblical scenes, a fascinating collection of 16th century maps, marvellous examples of classical Greek and Roman sculpture, a superb display of miniatures ... and so on.
There are six galleries filled with religious art down the centuries, featuring paintings, sketches, sculptures, frescoes and altar pieces by artists such as Caravaggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Poussin, Bellini, Matisse, El Greco, Picasso, Francis Bacon and Graham Sutherland.
We even passed through the private apartments of Pope Julius II, which were decorated by Raphael and feature one of his most famous works, The School of Athens, which depicts great scholars down the ages ... including Michelangelo.
By the time we actually entered the Sistine Chapel nearly two hours later, you'd think we might have had an overdose of art - but it was more like a series of tasty appetisers before the main course.
Even jam-packed with buzzing tourists trying desperately to walk with their heads craned back and noisy officials blowing whistles and shouting at people, this is an extraordinary place.
You don't need to be a follower of the Catholic Church to sense the weight of history in a chapel where, for more than 500 years, the Pope - for much of that time unchallenged in Europe as the representative of God on earth - has been chosen by his fellow cardinals.
Then there are the paintings on the walls; scenes from the lives of Moses and Jesus, rarely mentioned but created by many of the greatest masters of the Renaissance - painters like Botticelli, Pinturiccio, Signorelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Rosselli and di Cosimo.
On the back wall is Michelangelo's Last Judgment, also rarely mentioned, but arguably his finest work - a powerful, disturbing commentary on the human condition painted 20 years after he finished the ceiling and towards the end of his life.
According to Graham-Dixon, legend has it that when Pope Paul III saw the work for the first time, he fell on his knees and prayed: "Lord, do not charge me with my sins when you come on the day of judgment." It's a story that's easy to believe.
And finally, of course, soaring high above, there's the 1100sq m ceiling with its majestic scenes from the Book of Genesis, the making of the world and the creation of Adam and Eve, the expulsion from the Garden of Eden and Noah and the great flood.
I had heard that it would be hard to stand still and study the paintings in the current of people but, in fact, if you move off to the side, it's easy enough to stay in one place and gaze at the images above, and if you wait long enough you may be lucky enough to get a spot on one of the benches down the wall (we were).
Having read Graham-Dixon's book, I was aware of - and duly impressed by - the extraordinary innovations Michelangelo came up with in creating this work, including developing a new kind of scaffolding, improving the techniques of fresco painting, devising new ways of providing perspective ... and of course painting the first superman God.
Yet they're equally remarkable just as works of art. God, especially when he is creating the sun and the moon, is a stern, powerful and definitely godlike character, though that effect is a little undermined by the sight of his bum - no, I'm not joking - poking through the folds of his robes as he flies away afterwards.
But for me, the most moving of all is the panel depicting the creation of Adam.
As God extends his finger to give life to the first man, his eyes are firmly fixed on his creation, seeming to say: "Don't waste the chance I'm giving you." Meanwhile Adam looks bewildered and a little apprehensive.
We spent nearly an hour drinking all this in before finally leaving the chapel.
And then, incredibly, there were more treasures to be seen: long halls with display cabinets of religious artefacts, crucifixes, chalices, altar pieces, gravestones, sculptures, medals, carved sarcophagus lids, vestments, plaques and spoons; items from the Secret Archives of the Vatican, with documents relating to many of the great figures of the last eight centuries, including Louis XIV, Napoleon Bonaparte, Philip II of Spain, the Emperor Charles IV, Michelangelo, Galileo, Rafael, Tintoretto, Mozart, Rossini, Martin Luther and St Francis of Assisi (you can even buy copies of their signed letters if you wish).
There's an Egyptian Museum, an Ethnological Museum - with carved god-figures from several Pacific islands - and more collections of classical sculpture ... but by this stage we were suffering from an excess of art and a lack of food.
As we stumbled, blinking, back into the outside world - where the queue to get into the chapel was even longer but just as cheerful - we were suddenly in urgent need of a bottle of wine and a good meal. And luckily Rome is every bit as good at catering for such mundane needs as it is at providing for man's nobler aspirations.
In the backstreets nearby we found a lovely little restaurant in what looked like an old church, very cheap, and with great food - just what we needed after over-indulging on art, history and religion.
Jim Eagles went to Rome with help from Air New Zealand.
How to get there: Air New Zealand flies daily via Hong Kong or Los Angeles to London with connections to Milan and Rome with partner Airline Alitalia. For further information, visit airnz.co.nz.
Where to stay: Check out rome.info/ or italyheaven.co.uk/rome/ for general information on the city and suggestions of where to stay. House of Travel (0800 838 747 or houseoftravel.co.nz.rome) recommends the Colonna Palace Hotel located in a piazza just off Via Del Corso opposite the Parliament Buildings.
When to go: July, August are the peak periods. You'll avoid crowds and still enjoy warm weather in May, June, September.
