What to see in the Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums are one of the largest collections of works of art in the world and, if you are visiting Rome, you will maybe have just a few hours to visit them given the incredible number of attractions in the capital.

To make the most of your visit, we recommend buying your tickets online to avoid the long queues.
The 10 must-see attractions in the Vatican Museums are: the Sistine Chapel, Raphael Rooms, the Gallery of Maps, the Pinacoteca, the Pio Clementino Museum, the Gregorian Egyptian Museum, the Carriage Pavilion, the Ethnological Museum, the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Bramante Staircase.

The Sistine Chapel

The most famous part of the Vatican Museums is the Sistine Chapel, one of the absolute masterpieces of modern art.
It contains Michelangelo's frescoes of the Creation of Adam and the Last Judgement as well as works by Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio.

Raphael Rooms

Raphael Rooms, also known as the Vatican Rooms, are four rooms frescoed by the great painter from Urbino who painted them with his pupils.
The most famous is the Stanza della Segnatura where the four branches of knowledge are depicted: Theology, Philosophy, Justice and Poetry.

Gallery of Maps

One of the most beautiful and evocative parts of the Vatican Museums is undoubtedly the long corridor 120 meters long and 6 meters wide leading to the Sistine Chapel and decorated with geographical maps.
The walls of the gallery are covered with forty geographical maps of the different regions of Italy, with maps of the most important towns and cities.

Pinacoteca (Art Gallery)

18 rooms arranged in chronological order with paintings ranging from the Middle Ages to 1800 with 460 paintings including masterpieces by the likes of Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Perugino and Caravaggio.

Pio Clementino Museum

The Pio Clementino Museum is made up of 12 rooms with sculptures from the Greek and Roman periods. Among them you can admire the Roman copy of a Greek statue in bronze, the work of Lysippus, considered the first sculpture in Greek art.
In the Octagonal Court you can see, among the most famous statues, the Apollo of the Belvedere and the famous Laocoon Group.

Gregorian Egyptian Museum

9 rooms that collect monuments and artefacts of ancient Egypt from Rome and Hadrian’s Villa (Tivoli). The last three rooms house works from ancient Mesopotamia and Assyria.

Carriage Pavilion

For lovers of historic vehicles, the Carriage Pavilion is located in the Papal Apartment of the Lateran Palace, in a separate section of the Historical Museum.
It preserves saddles, carriages and cars used by various popes.

Ethnological Museum

The Ethnological Museum houses a very varied collection of around 80,000 objects, ranging from prehistoric finds from all over the world and dating back to more than two million years ago, to the gifts given to the current Pope.

Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art

9 rooms with over 8,000 works including paintings, sculptures prints by great names such as Van Gogh, de Chirico, Chagall, Bacon, Capogrossi, Carrà, Manzù, Fontana, Burri and Matisse.

The Bramante staircase

At the end of the museum there is the spectacular double spiral staircase. It was designed in 1932 by Giuseppe Momo and its peculiarity is that it does not allow those going down to meet those going up.