Rome – Vatican Museum (private tour)

The Vatican Museums are one of the largest museum complexes in the world. Located in the magnificent and very large Vatican Palace, they are composed of no less than 7 kilometers of galleries to visit.

The rooms of the fourteenth century palaces are home to some of the most famous works in the world, made by the greatest artists of all time, including Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Bernini, Botticelli, Raphael, Caravaggio, Giotto, and hundreds of others.

In fact, the Museum hosts thousands of works, including paintings and sculptures, and receives about 4 million visitors each year.

Exposed in the Vatican Museums are the most famous works of antiquity that came to light in Italy, including the “Gruppo del Laocoonte” or the “Laocoon Group”, discovered in 1506 on the Esquiline, the “Apollo del Belvedere”  and the famous Etruscan bronze known as the “Marte di Todi”.

During the Renaissance some of the rooms of the splendid buildings were decorated with exceptional frescoes,in which the Sistine Chapel, the Raphael Rooms and the Borgia apartment.

The buildings that  house the Vatican Museums were once the Renaissance palaces built for great Popes like Sixtus IV and Julius II;  the long courtyards and galleries that connect the “Palazzo del Belvedere di Innocenzo VIII to the other buildings, were designed by Bramante for Giulio II.