The great Museums and other Vatican City Things to Do Tips

Inside the Vatican there are many things to see. Great paintings and even more greater sculptures. But the walls and ceilings are incredible. It really inspires you and most important: gives you a sense of greatness ...

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The Vatican museums are among the most important in the world; they are the Museo Pio-Clementino, founded in the 18th cent. and containing one of the world's great collections of antiquities; the Chiaramonti Museum, founded in the early 19th cent. and holding a collection of Greek sculptures and Renaissance imitations; the Braccio Nuovo, considered by many to be the most beautiful of all the museums; the Egyptian Museum and the Etruscan Museum, opposite the Braccio Nuovo; and the Pinacoteca Vaticana (opened in 1932), which contains paintings by Giotto, Guercino, Caravaggio, Poussin, and others.

I was impressed by the painting in the back. Michellangelo and all the great people were working and making such art ...

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The palaces themselves form an irregular mass of three-story and four-story buildings, built on long, plain lines and broken by additions and alterations. The papal residence and offices occupy the portion near the colonnade, and the rest is given over to museums and the Vatican Library.

The museums, however, house only part of the Vatican's treasure, for many of the Renaissance and modern paintings are found in the galleries surrounding the various courtyards, such as the Cortile del Belvedere and the Cortile San Damasco.
The works of Raphael and his followers in the building make it one of the most famous artistic monuments in the world.

It is one of the world's richest repositories of ancient and medieval manuscripts in many languages. The principal chapel in the Vatican is the Sistine Chapel, the ceiling of which was painted by Michelangelo.

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Architect: Giacomo della Porta

Location: Vatican City, surrounded by Rome, Italy

Date: 1546 to 1564 and 1590

Building Type: church

Construction System: bearing masonry

Climate: mediterranean

Context: urban

Style: Italian Renaissance

Notes: With Michelangelo. "New St. Peter's" or "Saint Peter's" or "San Pietro". Centralized dome plan.

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Saint Peter's Church principal and one of the largest churches of the Christian world. The present structure was built mainly between 1506 and 1626 on the original site of the Vatican cemetery and an early shrine to St. Peter.

The huge scale of all the elements of the interior prevents any accurate notion of its magnitude, and its effectiveness is chiefly due to the dome, which is 404 ft (123 m) high from the pavement. The interior diameter of the dome, 137 ft (42 m) is one of the largest in the world. Beneath it is the high altar covered by Bernini's superb bronze baldachino. At this altar only the pope may read Mass. The interior with its colored marbles, its sculptures, and its gilt and fresco decorations gives an effect of multicolored space.

"St. Peter's, the most magnificent church in Christendom and the fruit of many talents, soars triumphantly above the Vatican Hill. For nearly 150 years, a succession of popes entertained the idea of glorifying the shrine of their patron saint."

— John Julius Norwich, ed. Great Architecture of the World.

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Once entered in Vatican you will be fascinated. Soon you will notice the Muse Calliopes (it was made 120-140 AD) in the room of the Muses ...

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