The Vatican Museums

When you visit the “City within a City”, one of your major tourist destinations will be “The Vatican Museums”. It is located in Viale Vaticano in Rome, inside the Vatican City. Vatican Museums are one of the most museums in the world, since they display works from the enormous collection built up by Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries. The museums were founded in the 16th century by Pope Julius II. The Sistine Chapel and the Stabze della Segnatura decorated by Raphael are on the visitor route through the Vatican Museums. As of 2007, it was visited by 4,310,083 people for the year

The History of Vatican Museum:

The Vatican Museums are rooted in the Renaissance, a period of improved appreciation for classical civilization. It all started with Pope Julius II (1503-1513), who displayed a collection of ancient sculptures in the Cortile Ottagono. Later popes, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, added their own galleries and museums, gradually making the Vatican Museums into one of the largest and most important displays of art in the world.

The Renaissance popes also hired the best artists in the western world, such as Fra Angelico, Michelangelo and Raphael, to beautify their palace apartments and chapels. These are now open to the public as part of the Vatican Museums, providing an exclusive experience in which some of the greatest art in the museum is part of the museum itself.

To accommodate the millions of visitors who throng the galleries every year, a grand new entrance to the Vatican Museums was added in 2000.