Vatican Museums Highlights: 15 Things You Should Not Miss

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The 15 highlights

Laocoön and His Sons

Museo Pio-Clementino, Cortile Ottagono

An ancient marble group, generally dated to the Hellenistic or early Roman Imperial period, and unearthed in Rome in 1506. Michelangelo was reportedly sent to inspect the find shortly after its discovery.

Apollo Belvedere

Museo Pio-Clementino, Cortile Ottagono

A Roman marble work generally understood as reproducing or adapting an earlier Greek bronze; it became the neoclassical ideal of male beauty.

Belvedere Torso

Museo Pio-Clementino, Sala delle Muse

A fragmentary torso generally dated to the first century BC. Renaissance artists, Michelangelo among them, admired it, and its heavy musculature is often compared with his Sistine figures.

Sala Rotonda porphyry basin

Museo Pio-Clementino, Sala Rotonda

An enormous monolithic bowl of imperial purple porphyry, roughly 13 metres in circumference, traditionally associated with Nero's Domus Aurea — an attribution that is reported rather than settled.

Augustus of Prima Porta

Braccio Nuovo

One of the defining imperial portraits of Augustus, with its politically loaded breastplate carvings.

The Egyptian Museum

Museo Gregoriano Egizio

Papal collections of Egyptian material, including mummies and painted coffins spanning many centuries, alongside Roman-era works in Egyptian style. Treat it as one collection rather than a single object.

Gallery of Maps

Corridor between the Belvedere and Apostolic Palace

A corridor of topographical maps of the Italian peninsula, frescoed under Gregory XIII in the early 1580s and, according to the museums, completed in under two years. The whole corridor is a single commission.

The Resurrection of Christ tapestry

Galleria degli Arazzi

Part of the so-called New School series, woven in Brussels in the workshop of Pieter van Aelst in the 16th century after designs from Raphael's circle. The figure of Christ and the foreground stone are often described as appearing to turn with the viewer as you walk along the gallery.

School of Athens (Raphael)

Stanze di Raffaello, Stanza della Segnatura

An idealised gathering of ancient philosophers, with Plato and Aristotle at the centre.

Disputation of the Holy Sacrament (Raphael)

Stanze di Raffaello, Stanza della Segnatura

Facing wall to School of Athens. Theology answering philosophy.

Fire in the Borgo (Raphael workshop)

Stanze di Raffaello, Stanza dell'Incendio

The room named after this dramatic depiction of a 9th-century fire in Rome.

Sistine Chapel ceiling — Creation of Adam

Cappella Sistina, central panel

The touch of God and Adam. Painted 1511 by Michelangelo.

Sistine Chapel ceiling — The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Plants

Cappella Sistina, altar-end panel

God twice in one scene, spinning both bodies into existence.

The Last Judgment (Michelangelo)

Cappella Sistina, altar wall

Painted about 25 years after the ceiling, 1536–1541. St Bartholomew holds his own flayed skin; the face on it is widely interpreted as a self-portrait of Michelangelo, though that reading is an interpretation rather than a documented fact.

St. Jerome in the Wilderness (Leonardo)

Pinacoteca, Room IX

An unfinished Leonardo left at an early stage, so the composition is visible as blocked-in monochrome modelling rather than finished paint.

One practical order

One practical route, subject to gallery openings, is: 15 (Pinacoteca first, as a detour), then 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

There is no single signposted route that passes every entry on this list. The Pinacoteca, the Egyptian Museum and the Braccio Nuovo all involve a choice, and rooms can be closed or one-way barriers in place on the day.

If you want the Pinacoteca, take it first while you are fresh. See our what to see and what to skip guide for priorities.

Context: why these matter

The Vatican Museums are the papal art collection accumulated over 500 years. Ancient sculpture formed the nucleus of the early museum collection — most Renaissance popes were serious collectors. Then Raphael and Michelangelo were commissioned to decorate the private papal apartments (the Raphael Rooms) and the Sistine Chapel.

Much of what is on this list reflects the taste of some of the wealthiest patrons in Europe between roughly 1470 and 1520. That's why these works cluster: they were bought or commissioned by the same people, for the same walls.

Frequently Asked Questions

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How long to see all of these?

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