Vatican Museums
The papal collections in the Apostolic Palace, ending at Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling.
The museums grew from the collection of ancient sculpture that Julius II placed in the Cortile delle Statue in 1506, beginning with the Laocoön group unearthed that year. Successive popes added galleries along the corridors linking the Apostolic Palace to the Belvedere villa, and in the eighteenth century Clement XIV and Pius VI created the Pio-Clementino museum. Later foundations include the Gregorian Egyptian and Etruscan museums, the Pinacoteca opened in 1932 and the ethnological collection now called Anima Mundi.
A visit follows a largely one-way route of several kilometres through the Pio-Clementino sculpture galleries, the Gallery of Maps, the Raphael Rooms and the collection of modern religious art, ending at the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo's ceiling of 1508 to 1512 and his Last Judgement. The entrance building on Viale Vaticano, designed by Giuseppe Momo and opened in 1932, contains the double spiral ramp that is among the most photographed features of the complex. Timed tickets are sold through the official portal.
Highlights
- Sistine Chapel ceiling and Last Judgement by Michelangelo
- Raphael Rooms, including The School of Athens
- Pio-Clementino galleries with the Laocoön and the Apollo Belvedere
- Giuseppe Momo's double spiral ramp at the entrance
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