Vatican Museums

In italian : Musei Vaticani 

The Vatican Museums are the largest and most visited museum complex in Italy. You can easily get lost in it, and it is better to select in advance the objects and places to see.

Museum presentation

The 12 Vatican museums are hosted within the Apostolic Palace built during the Renaissance, in 1400 rooms, over 7 kilometres of route. It is thus one of the largest collections of art in the world, constituted over time by the acquisitions of the Vatican. These collections include many masterpieces, including sculptures, frescoes, mosaics, and objects that reach us from Egyptian antiquity to modern times, through medieval and Renaissance art and painting.
In addition, the palaces themselves are a good reason to visit, especially to discover the famous Sistine Chapel, the Raphael Rooms, the spiral staircase of Bramante, or the Borgia Apartments decorated with the frescoes of the Pinturicchio. There are also the Pauline Chapel and galleries: a lapidary gallery in the Chiaramonti Museum, a candelabra gallery, a tapestry gallery, and a map gallery.

Cortile della Pigna, Vatican Museums

The various museums within the structure:

• Pinacoteca: paintings from the Middle Ages to the modern era, including paintings by Da Vinci, Caravaggio, Titian, Verona, etc
• Pio-Clementino Museum, with famous antique sculptures and Raphael’s Rooms
• Chiaramonti Museum, which houses nearly a thousand pieces, especially statues and busts of emperors
• Egyptian Gregorian Museum: Egyptian and Assyrian art
• Etruscan Gregorian Museum
• Profane Gregorian Museum: art of ancient Rome, including the mosaics of the Baths of Caracalla
• Pio Cristiano Museum, with medieval and early Christian art
• Collection of Modern Religious Art
• Missionary ethnological museum, with for example objects of worship of other religions such as Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, animism
• Museum of the Vatican Apostolic Library, which preserves the Pontifical Archives, including the secret archives of the Vatican
• Coach Museum, with carriages, saddles, cars, and chairs
• Philatelic and numismatic museum, inaugurated in 2007, with stamps and coins of the Vatican City from 1929 to today, and a vast philatelic collection of the former Papal States

Sistine Chapel

The Sistine Chapel is the main chapel of the Apostolic Palace, covered with fabulous frescoes by the best artists of the 15th and 16th centuries. It can be accessed directly from the Scala Regia adjoining the Basilica of Saint Peter. Michelangelo painted the monumental fresco of the Last Judgment on the altar wall and on the ceiling the scenes of the Old Testament.
The 12 paintings of the side walls of the chapel are by various authors such as Perugiani, Botticelli or Ghirlandaio, they illustrate episodes of the life of Christ and Moses [see the page on the Sistine Chapel].

Raphael Rooms

Raphael Rooms were part of the apartments of Pope Julius II. He entrusted the decoration of four rooms to Raphael at the beginning of the 16th century. They represent moral and philosophical themes. The Stanza dell’incendio del Borgo recalls the fire of Troy, the Stanza della Segnatura has the painting of the School of Athens and that of the Dispute of the Blessed Sacrament with the members of the Church, or the fresco of the cardinal and theological virtues.

Borgia Apartments

The Borgia apartments of the late 15th century have six rooms, housing part of the Museum of Modern Religious Art of the Vatican. They were made to be the private residence of Pope Alexander VI Borgia and his family. They stand out for their decorations with a series of remarkable frescoes, characterized by the Renaissance, painted by Bernardino Pinturicchio and his studio between 1492 and 1494.

Information and tickets

Opening and official rates 2023

Generally open every day from 9am to 6pm. Closing of entries at 4pm.
Closed on Sundays, except on the last Sunday of the month when museums are free if it does not coincide with Easter, or June 29, December 25 and 26. Opening hours: 9am – 2pm (entries until 12:30).
Additional closures in 2023: January 1st 6th, February 11th, April 10th, May 1st, June 29th, August 15th and 16th, November 1st, 8th, 25th, 26th and 31st

Full price 17 €, reduced 8 €, school 4 €

Links

• Official websites : www.museivaticani.va
• Wikipedia pages : Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, Apostolic Palace

Tickets and guided tours

Photo gallery

Map

Guided tours proposals