About the Museums
One of the world's oldest and most important museum complexes, built over five centuries of Papal patronage.
Five Centuries of Collecting
The Vatican Museums trace their origin to a single marble sculpture purchased in the early 16th century: the Laocoön and His Sons, unearthed on the Esquiline Hill on 14 January 1506. Pope Julius II immediately acquired it and placed it in the Belvedere Courtyard — the first nucleus of what would become one of the world's greatest museum complexes.
Over the centuries, successive popes added to the collection with extraordinary ambition. Clement XIV and Pius VI founded the Pio-Clementino Museum in the 18th century, housing Greek and Roman antiquities. Gregory XVI created the Gregorian Egyptian and Etruscan museums in 1837 and 1837 respectively. The Pinacoteca — the picture gallery — was established by Pius XI in 1932.
Today the Vatican Museums encompass 54 galleries spread across the Apostolic Palace and surrounding buildings, holding roughly 70,000 works of which some 20,000 are on permanent display.
Preserving Art
for All Humanity
The Vatican Museums exist to safeguard and share the extraordinary artistic and cultural heritage entrusted to the Holy See. Through conservation, scholarship, and public access, they connect millions of visitors each year to five millennia of human creativity — from ancient Egypt to the Renaissance to the present day.
A Timeline
Get in Touch
General Information
+39 06 69883145
[email protected]
Mon – Sat: 09:00 – 17:00
Directorate
+39 06 69883332
[email protected]
For press, institutional and academic enquiries.
Address
Viale Vaticano
00165 Rome, Italy
Entrance: Viale Vaticano
(not from St Peter's Square)