Part of rVacation.com Network

Vatican Museums

World's Greatest Art Collection & Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo • Raphael • Ancient Treasures

Explore → Get Early Access

🏛️ Your Perfect Roman Experience

⏰

Mon-Sat 9AM-6PM

Last entry 4PM, closed Sundays

⏱️

3-4 Hours

Full visit including Sistine Chapel

🎫

From €17

Skip-the-line from €25

📍

Vatican City

Viale Vaticano entrance

Neighborhood: Prati

Wide streets north of the walls

🧭 Why Visit

Twenty-six museums in one, ending at the Sistine Chapel, the greatest art collection ever assembled, gathered by the institution that commissioned much of it. Even the corridors between galleries would anchor a national museum anywhere else.

🏛️ A Little History

Popes began collecting in 1506, when Julius II displayed the newly unearthed Laocoön in a courtyard, the same pope who then put Michelangelo on the chapel ceiling and Raphael in the apartments, running art history's two greatest projects simultaneously, down the hall from each other.

💡 Did You Know?

The Sistine ceiling took Michelangelo four years painting standing up, head tilted back. He wrote a sonnet complaining his beard pointed at heaven and his brain was crushed. Visitors walk about 7 km if they see it all.

VATICAN MUSEUMS · THE APPROACH

Courtyards and the Climb

Before the galleries swallow you, the museums open to sky and stone: the great spiral stair, the pinecone courtyard, and the dome of St. Peter's floating over the garden pines.

The monumental Musei Vaticani entrance on the Viale Vaticano. — **The Way In**The monumental door on the Viale Vaticano, marked simply Musei Vaticani under the arms of two popes, is where the queue ends and the collection begins.

The double-helix spiral staircase in the Vatican Museums seen from above. — **The Spiral Staircase**Giuseppe Momo built this double helix in 1932 so that people climbing and people leaving would never cross paths. Everyone calls it the Bramante Staircase, after the older spiral it echoes.

The Cortile della Pigna at the Vatican Museums with Pomodoro's bronze sphere on the lawn. — **Cortile della Pigna**The Cortile della Pigna opens the museums to sky and lawn, with Arnaldo Pomodoro's bronze Sphere Within a Sphere set out on the grass.

Ancient Roman bronze pinecone, the Fontana della Pigna, flanked by two bronze peacocks. — **The Bronze Pinecone**The giant bronze pinecone that names the courtyard is Roman, close to two thousand years old, and once served as a fountain near the Pantheon. Two bronze peacocks flank it, copies of a pair from Hadrian's tomb.

The dome of St. Peter's Basilica rising above umbrella pines in the Vatican Gardens. — **The Dome from the Gardens**Michelangelo's dome rises over the umbrella pines of the Vatican Gardens, the view that follows you through the museum windows long before you reach the basilica itself.

View over the rooftops of Rome from a terrace of the Vatican Museums. — **Rome from the Terrace**From the museum terraces the city opens out, rooftops running to the hills, a reminder that all of this sits on one edge of Rome rather than apart from it.

VATICAN MUSEUMS · PIO-CLEMENTINO

Ancient Marble

The Pio-Clementino holds the popes' collection of antiquity, room after room of Roman marble, from a many-emblemed goddess to sarcophagi carved like theater.

Roman statue of the many-emblemed Artemis of Ephesus in alabaster and bronze. — **Artemis of Ephesus**The Artemis of Ephesus, carved in alabaster and bronze, wraps a Roman mother goddess in rows of oval emblems long read as signs of fertility. It is one of the strangest figures in the sculpture halls.

The domed Sala della Biga in the Vatican Museums with the marble two-horse chariot at its center. — **The Sala della Biga**The Sala della Biga is a domed round room built to hold one thing, the Chariot of Apollo at its center. The marble two-horse chariot was reassembled from ancient fragments in the eighteenth century.

Ancient Roman marble two-horse chariot, the Chariot of Apollo, in the Vatican Museums. — **The Chariot of Apollo**The Chariot of Apollo, or biga, is a Roman two-horse chariot. Its body served for centuries as a bishop's throne in a Roman church before an eighteenth-century restorer rebuilt it back into a chariot.

Roman marble sarcophagus with a reclining portrait of the deceased carved on its lid. — **A Roman Sarcophagus**A Roman marble sarcophagus carries its owner reclining on the lid, propped as if at dinner, above a crowded relief of figures. The dead were sent off in the finest stone a family could afford.

Large ancient urn carved from dark speckled stone on a marble base. — **Urn of Dark Stone**Carved from a single block of dark speckled stone and worked to a mirror finish, this outsized urn shows the Roman appetite for the hardest and rarest marbles.

A carved imperial porphyry sarcophagus in the Vatican Museums. — **An Imperial Sarcophagus**Cut from imperial purple porphyry for a woman of Constantine's family, it is carved with cupids treading grapes, in a stone so hard and so reserved for emperors that few could work it at all.

Ancient marble statue of a seated dog in the Vatican Museums' Room of the Animals. — **The Marble Dog**The Room of the Animals is a marble menagerie, and this seated hound, ears up and watchful, is its most lifelike guard, carved with a real eye for the animal.

VATICAN MUSEUMS · THE OCTAGONAL COURT

The Belvedere Masterpieces

The Cortile Ottagono gathers the antiquities that made the collection famous, the Apollo Belvedere and the Laocoön among them, the marbles that set Europe's idea of beauty for three centuries.

The Apollo Belvedere marble statue in its niche in the Vatican Museums. — **The Apollo Belvedere**The Apollo Belvedere was the most admired statue in the world for three centuries, a Roman marble after a lost Greek bronze, all poise and cool perfection. It gave the whole wing its name.

The ancient marble group of Laocoön and his sons in the Vatican Museums. — **The Laocoön**Dug out of a Roman vineyard in 1506 and bought by the pope within days, the Laocoön shows a priest and his sons crushed by sea serpents. Michelangelo rushed to see it the day it surfaced.

Antonio Canova's marble Perseus with the head of Medusa in the Vatican Museums. — **Canova's Perseus**Antonio Canova carved this Perseus with the head of Medusa around 1800, and it was set among the ancient masterpieces as their modern equal, an honour no living sculptor had been given before.

The fragmentary ancient marble Belvedere Torso in the Vatican Museums. — **The Belvedere Torso**The Belvedere Torso is a signed Greek fragment that Michelangelo admired so much he refused to restore it. Its twisting, muscled back turns up again all over the Sistine ceiling.

VATICAN MUSEUMS · THE ROUND ROOM

The Sala Rotonda

Modelled on the Pantheon, the round room sets colossal gods and gilded bronzes around a single basin of imperial porphyry cut for one of Nero's halls.

The huge round porphyry basin at the centre of the Sala Rotonda. — **The Porphyry Basin**A single basin of imperial porphyry more than four metres across sits at the centre, cut for one of Nero's halls and never easily moved since.

The gilded bronze statue of Hercules in the Sala Rotonda of the Vatican Museums. — **The Gilded Hercules**This over-life-size Hercules is gilded bronze, found near the Theatre of Pompey and buried in antiquity after a lightning strike marked it as sacred, which is why so much of the gold survives.

The colossal marble bust known as the Jupiter of Otricoli in the Vatican Museums. — **Jupiter of Otricoli**The colossal head of Jupiter from Otricoli, all beard and heavy brow, is a Roman image of the king of the gods, close to the face the West still pictures when it thinks of Zeus.

VATICAN MUSEUMS · THE MAP GALLERY

The Gallery of Maps

A 120-meter corridor of Italy mapped region by region in the 1580s, under a barrel vault of gold. It is the most photographed hallway in the museums, and it earns it.

The long barrel-vaulted corridor of the Vatican Gallery of Maps receding into the distance. — **The Gallery of Maps**The Gallery of Maps runs roughly 120 meters, its barrel vault a riot of gilded stucco above forty topographical maps of Italy. It was painted between 1580 and 1583 for Pope Gregory the Thirteenth.

Gilded stucco and fresco detail of the vaulted ceiling in the Gallery of Maps. — **The Vault Overhead**Every bay of the vault frames a scene in gold and fresco, so the ceiling rewards looking up as much as the maps reward looking across.

Frescoed map of the Italian peninsula with a compass rose in the Gallery of Maps. — **Italy in Fresco**The maps were designed by Ignazio Danti, a mathematician and cosmographer, and read as art as much as cartography, with compass roses, ships, and open blue seas.

Frescoed bird's-eye map of Venice and its lagoon in the Gallery of Maps. — **Venice in the Lagoon**Venice sits in its lagoon in miniature, galleys and merchant ships crowding the water, a city portrait four and a half centuries old.

The frescoed map panel of Etruria in the Vatican Gallery of Maps. — **Etruria**The panel for Etruria maps old Tuscany down to the Tyrrhenian coast, its towns picked out in gold, one bay in the forty-map sweep of the whole peninsula.

VATICAN MUSEUMS · THE TAPESTRIES

The Gallery of Tapestries

Flemish weavers turned Raphael's designs into wool and silk. The Resurrection is the one that seems to move as you walk past it.

Flemish tapestry of the Resurrection of Christ in the Vatican Gallery of Tapestries. — **The Resurrection**Woven in Brussels to designs from Raphael's workshop, the Resurrection is the gallery's showpiece. Walk along it and the risen Christ, and the tomb he rises from, seem to turn and follow you.

A Flemish tapestry of a ceremonial scene in the Vatican Gallery of Tapestries. — **In the Tapestry Hall**The Gallery of Tapestries hangs Brussels weavings made to designs from Raphael's workshop, their crowds of cardinals and courtiers rendered in wool as fine as paint.

Detail of a Flemish tapestry in the Vatican Gallery of Tapestries. — **Woven in Wool**Up close the tapestries read as painting, every face and fold built from dyed thread, the work of Flemish weavers after the master's own designs.

VATICAN MUSEUMS · THE RAPHAEL ROOMS

The Raphael Rooms

Four rooms Raphael and his workshop frescoed for the popes, the School of Athens among them. They are the last great stop before the Sistine Chapel.

Raphael's fresco The School of Athens in the Stanza della Segnatura. — **The School of Athens**Raphael's School of Athens gathers the philosophers of antiquity under a vast painted vault, Plato and Aristotle at the vanishing point, in the room where popes once signed their decrees.

Detail of Raphael's School of Athens showing the lone brooding figure on the steps. — **Michelangelo as Heraclitus**The brooding figure alone on the steps was a late addition, a portrait of Michelangelo as the philosopher Heraclitus, painted in after Raphael saw the Sistine ceiling next door.

Raphael's fresco the Disputation of the Holy Sacrament in the Stanza della Segnatura. — **The Disputation**Facing the School of Athens, the Disputation of the Holy Sacrament sets theology against philosophy across the room, heaven stacked above earth in a single sweep.

Raphael's night fresco the Liberation of Saint Peter around a barred prison window. — **The Liberation of St. Peter**In the Liberation of Saint Peter, Raphael painted three kinds of night around a barred prison window, moonlight, torchlight, and the glow of the angel. It is one of the first nocturnes in fresco.

Raphael's fresco the Fire in the Borgo with figures fleeing a blaze. — **The Fire in the Borgo**The Fire in the Borgo shows a blaze that legend says Pope Leo the Fourth stopped with a blessing. Raphael set a young man carrying his old father in the foreground, an Aeneas for Rome.

Ceiling roundel of Justice holding scales above the School of Athens in the Raphael Rooms. — **Justice on the Ceiling**Above the School of Athens the ceiling is divided among the four faculties of the mind, each a female allegory: Philosophy, Theology, Poetry, and this one, Justice, with her scales and sword.

Detail of Raphael's School of Athens with Euclid and the astronomers. — **Euclid and the Astronomers**At the front of the School of Athens, Euclid stoops over a compass while Zoroaster and Ptolemy hold up the heavens and the earth, and Raphael tucks his own face in at the very edge.

The frescoed Sala dell'Immacolata in the Vatican Museums. — **The Immacolata**The little Room of the Immaculate Conception is frescoed wall to ceiling to mark the dogma of 1854, a jewel box most visitors pass on their way to the next great hall.

VATICAN MUSEUMS · THE BORGIA APARTMENTS

The Borgia Apartments

Pinturicchio's private rooms for the Borgia pope, low and jewel-dark, reopened as galleries after centuries of quiet.

A frescoed vaulted room of the Borgia Apartments in the Vatican Museums. — **The Borgia Apartments**The Borgia rooms were left largely unused for centuries after the family's fall and opened to the public only in the nineteenth century, part of why the color survives so well.

VATICAN MUSEUMS · MODERN ART

The Modern Collection

The way out runs through the twentieth century, where Rodin's Thinker and modern religious works close the visit on an unexpected note.

A bronze cast of Auguste Rodin's The Thinker in the Vatican's modern art collection. — **Rodin's Thinker**The route ends in the modern collection, where a bronze cast of Rodin's Thinker sits among religious art of the last century, gathered by the popes as a bridge to living artists.

Modern sculpture of a pope in the papal tiara in the Vatican's contemporary collection. — **The Modern Collection**A modern pope in glazed white and gold cradles a lamb, one of the twentieth-century works the Vatican set among its ancient treasures.

Live Prices & Availability

Stay Nearby

🛏️ Sleep in Prati

The museum entrance sits on the Vatican wall where Prati begins. An early entry booking plus a bed in Prati is the single best crowd-avoidance move in Rome, and the neighborhood's trattorie are underrated.

Check rates →

Some links may earn us a commission at no cost to you — we only recommend places we would stay.

Best Visiting Tips

Strict dress code: shoulders and knees must be covered
Book 2-3 weeks ahead in peak season (Apr-Oct)
Avoid Wednesdays - Pope audience days are busiest

Photography Tips

No photos in Sistine Chapel - strictly enforced
Gallery of Maps has best photo opportunities

Frequently Asked Questions

How much time do I need for Vatican Museums?

Plan 3-4 hours minimum. The museums are massive with 9 miles of exhibitions. Quick visits focus on Sistine Chapel and Raphael Rooms (2 hours), while art lovers can spend all day.

Are skip-the-line tickets worth it?

Absolutely essential. Regular lines can exceed 3 hours in summer. Skip-the-line saves time and only costs €8-10 more. Book directly from Vatican or authorized sellers only.

When are Vatican Museums free?

Last Sunday of each month with free entry, but expect massive crowds and 4+ hour waits. Not recommended unless you arrive by 7 AM. Better to pay for a peaceful visit.

Is St. Peter's Basilica included?

Basilica is free and separate from museums. You can access it from Sistine Chapel with tour guide (skip the line) or walk around to main entrance (expect security lines).

Continue Your Italian Journey

Explore more destinations in our Italian travel network

🎨 Florence 🚤 Venice 👗 Milan 🍕 Naples 🍝 Bologna 💕 Verona 🍷 Tuscany 🌊 Amalfi Coast 🏘️ Cinque Terre 🌋 Sicily 🇮🇹 rItalian

More journeys: 🌺 rHawaii ✈️ rVacation 📷 rPhotography 🍽️ rDining

Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you book through them, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. We only recommend tours and stays we would book ourselves.