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Homeless get private tour of Sistine Chapel

Dozens of homeless people were on Thursday treated to a private viewing of the Sistine Chapel in Pope Francis's latest gesture towards the most vulnerable in society.

Published: 26 March 2015 14:39 CET

Homeless get private tour of Sistine Chapel

The Sistine Chapel is home to Michelangelo's celebrated ceiling frescoes. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP

Normally one of the hottest tourist tickets in town, the home of Michelangelo's celebrated ceiling frescoes was to close its doors early to regular visitors to enable the group of around 150 street-sleepers to be shown around the chapel and adjoining Vatican museums and gardens.

It was the latest in a string of highly symbolic initiatives sanctioned by Francis, who has made a focus on the plight of the homeless and other marginalized groups one of the defining themes of his papacy.

Last month a homeless man who died on the streets around St Peter's was buried in an exclusive cemetery within the Vatican that is usually reserved for senior German clerics.

READ MORE: Homeless man to get Vatican burial

The Argentinian Pope, who says he wants "a poor church, for the poor," has had showers for the homeless installed in public toilets just off St Peter's square.

To mark his 78th birthday in December, he ordered the distribution of sleeping bags across Rome and some homeless people have been recruited to hand out copies of the gospels to the faithful attending Sunday audiences at St Peter's.

SEE ALSO: Homeless to get haircut and shave at the Vatican

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The new guide to Florence's Uffizi Galleries - showing only the nudes

Sandro Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" is the most famous work included in a controversial new guide to the Uffizi Galleries. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

The online guide to the gallieries is produced by the porn website Pornhub and provide a list of the best erotic artworks in each museum, plus directions of how to get there – so you don’t need to waste your time looking at paintings of people in clothes.

Part of the site’s Classic Nudes series of ‘erotic’ guides to some of the world’s most renowned museums, the guide for the Uffizi lists 21 artworks, together with a tongue-in-cheek commentary, and the location of each piece within the galleries.

“The Uffizi Gallery is located in the birthplace of the Renaissance: Florence, Italy. So it’s no wonder it has such a large collection of artwork from the era. But what you may find surprising is the sheer volume and variety of naked bodies rendered in paint, bronze and marble in this marvelous museum,” writes Pornhub.

Among the works featured are Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (1485) and the Roman statue of the Knidian Aphrodite, dating from the 1st Century.

The guide also includes the Venus of Urbino by Titian (1538), which it calls “kinky”, and Painting and Poetry by Francesco Furini (1626), which is described as featuring “two ridiculously hot babes who just so happen to be making out”.

Titian’s “Venus of Urbino”. Photo: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP

Bosses at the Uffizi were not amused at the gallery’s inclusion in Pornhub’s series and have threatened to sue.

Meanwhile in Paris, the Louvre’s management has said only that it is ‘dismayed’, while the Musée d’Orsay remained silent on the subject.

As is hopefully clear, the Pornhub guides are explicit in nature and not suitable for children.

The Uffizi does, however, provide a great day out for all the family and contains a lot of fully-clothed artwork too. At present it is operating with reduced visitor numbers due to health rules, so advance booking to recommended.

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