World's Coolest Staircases

Vatican Museums’ Spiral Staircase, Rome

Pope Pius XI charged Giuseppe Momo with designing a bronze staircase at the entrance to the Vatican Museums in the late 1920s. He rose to the challenge, creating wide ramplike steps and two separate helixes of the spiral staircase so that one leads up and the other goes down—twisting together into a double-helix formation decades before Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA. The staircase’s finishing touches, bronze angel decorations, were the contribution of sculptor Antonio Maraini. —Lyndsey Matthews

You might also like

Marketplace

Other American Express Publishing Websites:
Food & Wine
Departures
SkyGuide
Executive Travel
Related Websites:
Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia

View Website Terms and Conditions and Privacy Statement of American Express Publishing Corporation. Users of this site agree to be bound by the terms
of the American Express Publishing Corporation Website Terms and Conditions. Copyright © 1997 - 2013 American Express Publishing Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

on www.travelandleisure.com

Travel + Leisure

World's Coolest Staircases

Vatican Museums’ Spiral Staircase, Rome

You might also like

Marketplace