The Vatican Museums are to be entered from Viale Vaticano in Rome, inside the Vatican City. The history of the Vatican and the history of the Catholic Church cannot be separated. The religious center of Europe since its beginning, presiding over the Middle ages, through the enlightenment and still to this day, the Vatican collection displays works gathered by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries. Deep in the holy center of Vatican City, this museum is a powerful shrine of treasures encompassing the entire history of the Vatican and housed in a series of palaces, apartments and galleries which make it the second largest museum in the world after the parisian Louvre. As seen today, the Vatican Museums are therefore a complex of different pontifical museums and galleries that began under the patronage of the popes Clement XIV (1769-1774) and Pius VI (1775-1799). In fact, the Pio-Clementine Museum was named after these two popes, who set up this first major curatorial section. Later, Pius VII (1800-1823) considerably expanded the collections of Classical Antiquities, to which he added the Chiaromonti Museum and the "Braccio Nuovo" gallery. He also enriched the Epigraphic Collection, which was conserved in the Lapidary Gallery.

Inside the museum you will find from Egyptian pieces to Etruscan, Greek and Roman artifacts to Renaissance paintings and, of course, the legendary Sistine Chapel. But before you get there, there are a multitude of other things to see. Long galleries of tapestries are another highlight inside the Vatican museum leading to the Raphael rooms: these were private quarters built for Julius II with the artist's frescoes spread across the walls and ceiling. His masterwork: the School of Athens.

Ancient late renaissance cartography is on display in the gallery of the maps, giving always a certain thrill thinking of those aerial views conceived when flying was impossible. Some other private rooms include the once Borgia apartments, designed for pope Alexander VI and displaying frescoes by Pinturicchio depicting biblical and astrological themes. A surprising collection of of almost 800 works of 250 international artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, Francis Bacon, Giacomo Balla, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso can also be admired in this area. The majority of these works of art were donated by artists and collectors to the Holy See. Of all of the museums, not just in Italy but all over the world this one is not to be missed.