Rome, the capital of Italy, is a huge, cosmopolitan city with nearly 3,000 years of influential art, architecture, and culture worldwide. Ancient ruins such as the Forum and the Coliseum evoke the power of the ancient Roman Empire, one of the most beautiful European capitals in the world, rich in history and charm, a place with an ancient tradition and an enormous artistic and cultural heritage. Vatican City, the seat of the Roman Catholic Church, has St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museums, which house masterpieces such as the frescoes in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel.
We have selected 5 unmissable Museums in the Capital, where you can touch ancient art with your own hands and be able to go back in time through imagination.
Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums represent a true treasure of art whose importance is unparalleled. Inside you can admire the frescoes by Michelangelo and the works accumulated by various Popes over the centuries, one of the most significant and largest art collections in the world is preserved here. In addition to the Sistine Chapel, there are the Raphael Rooms, the Gallery of Geographical Maps, and the “Cortile della Pigna di Bramante”.
The must-see attractions inside the Vatican Museums are:
Sistine Chapel, the Raphael Rooms, the Geographical Maps Gallery, the Pinacoteca, the Pio-Clementino Museum, the Gregorian Egyptian Museum, the Carriage Pavilion, the Ethnological Museum, the Contemporary Museum Art Collection, the Helicoidal Staircase.
Colosseum
The Roman Coliseum is today the symbol of Rome in the world and is the most thrilling of Rome's monuments. It was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World, making it a historical and archaeological treasure capable of reminding us of the greatness of the Roman Empire. It was here that gladiators met in fierce combat and condemned prisoners fought off wild beasts in front of baying, bloodthirsty crowds. Two thousand years on and it's Italy's top tourist attraction.
Pantheon
An impressive 2000-year-old temple, now a church, the pantheon is the best-preserved ancient monument in Rome and one of the most influential buildings in the western world. Its pockmarked exterior may look ancient, but inside it's a different story, and it's a unique and exhilarating experience to step through its vast bronze doors and gaze at the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built.
Borghese Gallery
If you have time for one art gallery in Rome, make it this one. Housing what's often referred to as the "queen of all private art collections", features paintings by Caravaggio, Raphael, and Titian, as well as sensational sculptures by Bernini.
The museum's collection was formed by Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1577-1633), the most experienced and ruthless art collector of his time. It was originally housed in the Cardinal's residence near St. Peter's, but in the 1620s he moved it to his new villa just outside Porta Pinciana. And it is here, in the Villa's Central building, the Borghese Casino, that you will see it today.
Capitoline Museums
The collections of the oldest museum in the world will leave you amazed, overlooking Piazza del Campidoglio, designed in the mid-16th century by Michelangelo, the Capitoline Museums are the symbol of the city of Rome and one of the most important museums of art and archeology in Italy.
The collections of the Capitoline Museums are displayed in two buildings that together with the Palazzo Senatorio delimit the Piazza del Campidoglio, the Palazzo dei Conservatori, and the Palazzo Nuovo, connected by an underground gallery that houses the Lapidary Gallery and leads to the old Tabularium, whose Monumental arches dominate the Roman Forum.
In Palazzo Nuovo, the collections of ancient sculptures resulting from the collection of the great noble families of past centuries are preserved. The famous collections of the busts of philosophers and Roman emperors, the statue of the dying Galata, the Capitoline Venus, and the imposing statue of Marforio, are all preserved here.
The Palazzo dei Conservatori shows the original architectural core of the building, decorated with splendid frescoes with the stories of Rome and ennobled by the presence of ancient Capitoline bronzes: the Lupa, the Spinario, the Capitoline Brutus.
The newly constructed large glass hall on the first floor of the building houses the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius and the imposing ruins of the Capitoline Jupiter Temple, flanked by a section dedicated to Capitoline Hill's older history.
On the second floor, the Capitoline Art Gallery presents, in a chronologically ordered route from the late Middle Ages to the 18th century, works of great importance, such as the paintings by Caravaggio, the large canvas "The Burial of Santa Petronilla by Guercino" and a substantial core of paintings by Guido Reni and Pietro da Cortona.
At Palácio Caffarelli Clementino you will find the Capitoline Medal, with the precious collections of coins, medals, gems, and jewels, in addition to a space dedicated to temporary exhibitions.
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