Sistine Chapel

LONDON -- Anyone want to buy a 150-year lease on a 574,814-square-foot, centuries-old architectural gem that includes riverfront views, a swanky mess hall, a gorgeous chapel and a nuclear reactor?Call Richard Haynes of the London realty firm Knight, Frank & Rutley. He's trying to find a tenant for the Royal Naval College in London's borough of Greenwich. And, boy, is he catching flak."This is a sensitive issue," Mr. Haynes says. "This is probably the most important property to come to the market in the postwar years."

Roman Catholic cardinals went into a virtual news blackout Tuesday as they began to elect a new pope, but that has only heightened interest in what's happening behind the closed doors of their conclave. "I just had 'smoke cam' on my screen," said Monsignor Stuart Swetland, a professor and vice president for Catholic identity at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg who was watching CBS News' online "Vatican Smoke Cam" to see what color smoke emerged from the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City.

CARTHAGE, Mo. -- It was as Sam Butcher gazed up at Michelangelo's frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel that he hit on an inspiration.He would build his own Sistine Chapel.Butcher is the creator of Precious Moments, the sentimental porcelain figurines of teardrop-eyed children that have become one of the top collectibles in the world, sometimes outstripping Hummel figures in sales.Precious Moments figurines made Butcher a millionaire, and he decided he wanted to use some of those millions to build something seemingly impractical, but beautiful: a chapel, like the Sistine, but with murals that featured Precious Moments characters.

ROME - At a tourist information center near the Roman Forum, I asked an attendant whether anything was free in the Eternal City. He looked at me strangely, then came up with a response. "Si, signora," he said, pointing to the brochures on the countertop, "all these are free." It's like that in Rome, where prices for everything are high, even before you get sticker shock from exchanging dollars to euros. Here's how a budget traveler can try to make do: STANDING ROOM ONLY : At a bar, cafe or pasticceria, stand at the counter instead of sitting at a table.

VATICAN CITY -- The Roman Catholic Church officially closed out Pope John Paul II's reign yesterday and unveiled a false floor in the Sistine Chapel to hide anti-eavesdropping equipment. The Vatican said Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, the papal chamberlain, destroyed Pope John Paul's Fisherman's Ring and lead seal, officially ending his pontificate, during a meeting of cardinals to discuss problems facing the church. Then, the cardinals in Rome under the age of 80 were told to begin moving this afternoon into the Domus Sanctae Marthae, or St. Martha's House, behind St. Peter's Basilica, for the conclave, which begins tomorrow.

The Vatican Museum was a must see for my first trip to Italy last fall. I was so amazed at the incredible collection of Greek, Roman and Egyptian treasures at the museum. Then came the visually stunning Raphael Rooms and Michelangelo's masterwork in the Sistine Chapel. Just when I thought it could not get any better, I came to the spectacular spiral stairway that was designed by Giuseppe Momo in 1932. I spent nearly an hour admiring and photographing this amazing stairway. Lonnie Kishiyama Millersville The Sun welcomes submissions for "My Best Shot."

Carlo Pietrangeli, 82, an archaeologist whose 17-year tenure as head of the Vatican Museums culminated with the restoration the Sistine Chapel, died yesterday. Despite a long illness, he had continued in his post as director-general of the museums, where Michelangelo's frescoed ceiling graces the chapel. He was appointed to the top museum post in 1978 by Pope John Paul I.Atef el-Tayeb, 47, a film director who was part of the new realism trend in Egyptian cinema, died yesterday in Cairo after heart surgery.

It was appropriate for Attorney General Janet Reno to suggest recently that unless TV executives exercised a reasonable degree of self-restraint in depicting violence the government might be forced to step in. Ms. Reno implied that television should follow the example of the motion picture industry, which voluntarily adopted standards for rating the sex and violence content of films.So far, so good. But the movie industry may not always be the model of "reasonableness." While Hollywood generally has adhered to the standards it set for itself in the 1970s, the ratings can cover a multitude of sins.

Nearly 200 years after George Washington died in an upstairs bedroom of his beloved mansion overlooking the Potomac River, Mount Vernon is getting air conditioning.That's cool with most folks. Millions of summer visitors have sweated through tours of the carefully preserved Virginia home of the nation's first president, and electric fans are needed to keep guides from fainting in the stifling heat.But a few preservationists are downright hot over the decision of Mount Vernon's governing board to install a $1 million, computerized climate-control system in one of America's most historic homes.

Although only Roman Catholic cardinals participated in the secret conclave that elected the new pope, Cardinal William H. Keeler said he felt the prayers of multitudes. Addressing those at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen for a Mass of Thanksgiving for Pope Benedict XVI yesterday, Keeler thanked parishioners for their prayers while he was away in Rome. Keeler told the congregation yesterday that it wasn't just the 115 cardinals who were at the conclave, but "the whole church ... millions upon millions," he said, joking that he had the e-mails and voicemail messages to prove it. During his homily, Keeler talked about his experience at the Vatican and his hopes for the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

Among the memorable, music-related moments in Mayberry, on the classic TV sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, is when a jealous Deputy Barney Fife tries to talk a golden-voiced bumpkin-type named Rafe Hollister out of entering the town's singing contest. Barney: "They're liable to ask you questions only a trained musician understands. Rafe: Like what? Barney: Well, suppose they was to ask, "Can you sing a cappella?" Would you know what to do? Rafe: No. Barney: There you are. Why get up and embarrass yourself?

What the heck happened? That could apply to the outcome of last night's Super Bowl, but it also could apply to how I felt as I was watching it unfold on Fox. Was it really just a simple matter of the New York Giants defense applying pressure to Tom Brady and disrupting the vaunted New England Patriots offense? That seemed to be the only explanation we were hearing from analyst Troy Aikman. They were attacking the Patriots in a variety of ways, with different blitzes, Aikman said in the first half.

The Vatican Museum was a must see for my first trip to Italy last fall. I was so amazed at the incredible collection of Greek, Roman and Egyptian treasures at the museum. Then came the visually stunning Raphael Rooms and Michelangelo's masterwork in the Sistine Chapel. Just when I thought it could not get any better, I came to the spectacular spiral stairway that was designed by Giuseppe Momo in 1932. I spent nearly an hour admiring and photographing this amazing stairway. Lonnie Kishiyama Millersville The Sun welcomes submissions for "My Best Shot."

Although only Roman Catholic cardinals participated in the secret conclave that elected the new pope, Cardinal William H. Keeler said he felt the prayers of multitudes. Addressing those at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen for a Mass of Thanksgiving for Pope Benedict XVI yesterday, Keeler thanked parishioners for their prayers while he was away in Rome. Keeler told the congregation yesterday that it wasn't just the 115 cardinals who were at the conclave, but "the whole church ... millions upon millions," he said, joking that he had the e-mails and voicemail messages to prove it. During his homily, Keeler talked about his experience at the Vatican and his hopes for the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

VATICAN CITY -- The cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church return to the sequestered secrecy of the Sistine Chapel this morning, resuming the deliberations to elect a new pope that ended yesterday with plumes of black smoke rising from the chapel's stovepipe -- a sign that their first vote did not produce a two-thirds majority. Thousands in St. Peter's Square briefly saw the first wisps of smoke as white, building hopes that the 115 cardinals had chosen a successor to Pope John Paul II on their first ballot.

VATICAN CITY -- The Roman Catholic Church officially closed out Pope John Paul II's reign yesterday and unveiled a false floor in the Sistine Chapel to hide anti-eavesdropping equipment. The Vatican said Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, the papal chamberlain, destroyed Pope John Paul's Fisherman's Ring and lead seal, officially ending his pontificate, during a meeting of cardinals to discuss problems facing the church. Then, the cardinals in Rome under the age of 80 were told to begin moving this afternoon into the Domus Sanctae Marthae, or St. Martha's House, behind St. Peter's Basilica, for the conclave, which begins tomorrow.

HE was naked!His bronzed muscular body frightened the Ocean City populace even though he didn't move -- and never set foot in the seashore town.When surfer Mike Chester died two years ago of cancer, his friends wanted to memorialize him. They commissioned a statue to remember him and honor all surfers who hung 10 at the Maryland resort.When a photograph of Edmond Shumpert's work in progress arrived in Ocean City, the town elders became stricken by the sight. While Chester was a surfing buff, he was not known to have surfed in the buff.

The cardinals won't be toting laptops when they assemble Monday in the Sistine Chapel to pick a new pope, but the information highway constructed since the last papal conclave in 1978 could steer them in new ways. "This will probably weaken the role of the kingmakers since everyone will already know something about the main candidates," says the Rev. Thomas J. Rees, who, as editor of the Jesuit-run America Magazine, is in Rome to cover the election. From official archdiocese Web sites with biographies and announcements to reports from online periodicals, the cardinals and the public alike have unprecedented background material at their fingertips.

VATICAN CITY - Tomorrow, 115 cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church will sequester themselves in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel for the beginning of the faith's most private and perhaps most important ritual, the election of a new pope. They will dress in their traditional scarlet cassocks and hats, and, after a Mass and lunch, will file one by one into the 15th-century sanctuary, chanting an ancient ode to God. They will have surrendered cell phones, radios and any other links to the outside, and they will swear on the Gospels never to speak of the proceedings about to transpire.

VATICAN CITY - Tomorrow, 115 cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church will sequester themselves in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel for the beginning of the faith's most private and perhaps most important ritual, the election of a new pope. They will dress in their traditional scarlet cassocks and hats, and, after a Mass and lunch, will file one by one into the 15th-century sanctuary, chanting an ancient ode to God. They will have surrendered cell phones, radios and any other links to the outside, and they will swear on the Gospels never to speak of the proceedings about to transpire.