The Must-Visit Museums in Rome

Housing one of the most famous and extensive art collections in the world, the Vatican Museums are the uncontested most important museum to see in Rome. Laid out across hundreds of rooms, galleries and halls, the museums contain thousands of treasures ranging from antiquity to the present day, including sculptures, paintings, tapestries and frescoes. The museums date back to 1506 when Pope Julius II put an ancient sculpture, Laocoön and His Sons, on display at the Vatican. The unrivaled highlight is Michelangelo’s intricately-frescoed Sistine Chapel, a landmark of Renaissance art that illustrates the doctrine of the Catholic Church and depicts the creation of man, among other stories in the Old and News Testaments.

Located on Rome’s Capitoline Hill, the Capitoline Museums are considered the world’s first public museum. The collection dates back to 1471 when Pope Sixtus IV donated a collection of important bronze statues to the people of Rome. The Capitoline Museums slowly grew to accommodate countless works of art and in 1734 Pope Clement XII declared that the museums be open to the public. They contain an incredible collection of ancient Roman bronze and marble statues, medieval and Renaissance art, and elaborate frescoes – not to mention one of the best views of the Roman Forum.

Rome’s National Gallery of Modern Art, founded in 1883, lies adjacent to the Villa Borghese Park and is an expansive space in the capital dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Located within the neoclassical Palace of Fine Arts, the museum’s works of art are complemented and enhanced by the building’s monumental architecture. It has the largest collection of 19th and 20th-century paintings and sculptures in Italy with numerous works by Italian artists on display, including Giacomo Balla, Giorgio de Chirico, Amedeo Modigliani and Giorgio Morandi. It also has a collection of works by international artists such as Kandinsky, Pollock, Calder and Van Gogh.

Palazzo Massimo is one branch of the National Museum of Rome, a collection of four museums that exhibit works from pre- and early Roman history, along with numerous archeological finds unearthed in the city. Palazzo Massimo is housed within a 19th-century palazzo close to Termini Station and contains notable sculptures, including the bronze Boxer at Rest and marble statues that date back to the late Roman Republic and imperial era. The museum is famous for contained the frescoes of the Villa di Livia, depicting an exotic garden with colorful flora and fauna.