Museum sights in Rome
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Vatican Museums
Visiting the Vatican Museums is an unforgettable experience that requires strength, stamina and patience. You’ll need to be on top of your game to endure the inevitable queues – if not for a ticket then for the security checks – and enjoy what is undoubtedly one of the world’s great museum complexes.
Founded by Pope Julius II in the early 16th century and enlarged by successive pontiffs, the museums are housed in what is known collectively as the Palazzo Apostolico Vaticano. This massive 5.5-hectare complex consists of two palaces – the Vatican palace nearest St Peter’s and the Belvedere Palace – joined by two long galleries. On the inside are three courtyards: th…
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Museo Nazionale Romano: Palazzo Altemps
Just north of Piazza Navona, Palazzo Altemps is a gem. A beautiful, late-15th-century palazzo, it houses the best of the Museo Nazionale Romano’s formidable collection of classical sculpture. Many of the pieces come from the celebrated Ludovisi collection, amassed by Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi in the 17th century. Prize exhibits include the 5th-century Trono Ludovisi (Ludovisi Throne), a carved marble throne depicting Aphrodite being plucked from the sea as a newborn babe. It shares a room with two colossal heads, one of which is the goddess Juno and dates from around 600 BC. The wall frieze (about half of which remains) depicts the 10 plagues of Egypt and the Exodus. E…
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Museo Carlo Bilotti
The art collection of billionaire cosmetics magnate Carlo Bilotti is stylishly housed in the Orangery of Villa Borghese. It’s a small collection (only 22 pieces), but it’s interesting and well presented with explanatory panels in English and Italian. Paintings range from a Warhol portrait of Bilotti’s wife and daughter to 18 works by Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978), one of Italy’s most important 20th-century artists. There’s also a fine selection of landscapes by Alessandro Poma (1874–1960).
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Museo Nazionale Romano: Palazzo Massimo alle Terme
A treasure trove of classical art, the light-filled Museo Nazionale Romano: Palazzo Massimo alle Terme is one of Rome’s finest museums, yet receives only a smattering of visitors.
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Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica – Palazzo Barberini
A must for anyone into Renaissance and baroque art, this sumptuous gallery is housed in one of Rome’s most spectacular palazzi. Commissioned by the Barberini pope Urban VIII in 1623, it was worked on by a who’s-who of 17th-century architects, including Carlo Maderno, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini – check out their rival staircases within the building. Pietro da Cortona painted the breathtaking fresco Trionfo della Divina Provvidenza (Triumph of Divine Providence), in the main 1st-floor salon, between 1633 and 1639. The gallery, on the 1st floor, contains a superb selection of 16th- to 17th-century works, including paintings by Raphael, Caravaggio, Gui…
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Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica di Palazzo Corsini
Housing part of Italy’s national art collection (the rest is in Palazzo Barberini), the 16th-century Palazzo Corsini has a distinguished history. Michelangelo, Erasmus and Bramante all stayed here but the palazzo is most readily associated with Queen Christina of Sweden, who took up residency in 1662 and entertained a steady stream of lovers in her richly frescoed bedroom. Gallery highlights include Van Dyck’s superb Madonna della Paglia (Madonna of the Straw), Murillo’s Madonna col bambino (Madonna and Child), and a typically haunting Caravaggio, San Giovanni Battista (St John the Baptist), in Room 3. The paintings of the Bologna school in Room 7 also catch the eye…
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Museo della Civiltà Romana
A proven kid-pleaser, EUR's most impressive museum was founded by Mussolini in 1937 to glorify Imperial Rome. A hulking place with huge echoing halls, it contains a number of intriguing displays. The best is a giant scale recreation of 4th-century Rome, but there are also detailed models of the city's main buildings, an absorbing cross-section of the Colosseum and casts of the reliefs on the Colonna di Traiano.
For something completely different, learn about the night sky at the on-site Museo Astronomico (Astronomy Museum; 06 820 59 127; adult/child around €7.50/4.40), complete with its own planetarium. You'll need to book for the planetarium shows.
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Capitoline Museums at Centrale Montemartini
This fabulous outpost of the Capitoline Museums is a treat. Housed in a former power station, it boldly juxtaposes classical sculpture against diesel engines and giant furnaces. The collection’s highlights are in the Sala Caldaia, where a giant furnace provides a suitably impressive backdrop. Two of the most beautiful pieces are the Fanciulla Seduta sitting with her elbow resting on her knee, and Musa Polimnia gazing dreamily into the distance. At the far end of the room is the milky-white Venus Esquilina from the 1st century BC, discovered on the Esquilino in 1874.
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Porta San Sebastiano
Marking the start of Via Appia Antica, the 5th-century Porta San Sebastiano is the largest of the gates in the Aurelian Wall. It was originally known as Porta Appia but took on its current name in honour of the thousands of pilgrims who passed under it on their way to the Catacombe di San Sebastiano. During WWII, the Fascist Party secretary Ettore Muti lived here and today it houses the Museo delle Mure, a modest museum illustrating the history of the wall. It’s worth a quick look, if for nothing else than the chance to walk along the top of the walls.
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Museo Nazionale Romano: Crypta Balbi
The least known of the Museo Nazionale Romano’s four museums, the Crypta Balbi provides a fascinating insight into Rome’s multilayered past. More than the exhibits, it’s the structure of the building itself that’s the main interest. It’s built around the ruins of medieval and Renaissance structures, themselves set on top of a grand Roman portico and theatre, the Teatro di Balbus (13 BC). You can duck down into the underground excavations before perusing artefacts taken from the Crypta, as well as items found in the forums and on the Oppio and Celio hills.
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Museo Ebraico di Roma
The historical, cultural and artistic heritage of Rome’s Jewish community is chronicled in this small but engrossing museum. Housed in the city’s early-20th-century synagogue, Europe’s second largest, it presents harrowing reminders of the hardships experienced by the city’s Jewry. Exhibits include copies of Pope Paul IV’s papal bull confining the Jews to the ghetto and relics from the Nazi concentration camps. You can also book a one-hour guided walking tour (adult/student €8/5) of the ghetto at the museum.
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Explora – Museo dei Bambini di Roma
Rome’s only dedicated kids’ museum, Explora is aimed at the under-12s. It’s set up as a miniature town where children can play at being grown-ups. With everything from a doctor’s surgery to a TV studio, it’s a hands-on, feet-on, full-on experience that your nippers will love. And it runs on solar power. In order to control the number of visitors, all visits are limited to 1¾ hours, with entry times as detailed above. Booking is advisable on weekdays, essential on weekends.
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Museo Storico della Liberazione
Now a small museum, Via Tasso 145 was the headquarters of the German SS during the Nazi occupation of Rome (1943–44). Members of the resistance were interrogated, tortured and imprisoned in the cells and you can still see graffiti scrawled on the walls by condemned prisoners. Exhibits, which include photos, documents and improvised weapons, chart the events of the occupation with particular emphasis on the persecution of the Jews, the underground resistance and the Fosse Ardeatina massacre.
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Museo di Roma
Housed in the impressive Palazzo Braschi, the Museo di Roma’s eclectic collection of paintings, photographs, etchings, clothes and furniture charts the history of Rome from the Middle Ages to the first half of the 20th century. The palazzo itself contains some beautiful frescoed halls, including the extravagant Sala Cinese and the Egyptian-themed Sala Egiziana. Among the paintings, look out for Raphael’s 1511 portrait of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the future Pope Paul III.
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Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia
A short walk down Viale delle Belle Arti leads to the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia. Italy’s finest collection of pre-Roman treasures is considerately presented in Pope Julius III’s 16th-century pleasure palace. The villa was built between 1551 and 1555, and Vasari, Vignola and Michelangelo were all advisors on its construction. It originally had private access to and from the Tiber via a special path through surrounding gardens and vineyards.
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Museo Nazionale delle Paste Alimentari
Pasta is celebrated in all its fascinating glory at this wonderfully straight-faced museum. It's the only museum in the world dedicated to more than two millennia of pasta and it takes its responsibilities seriously - there are exhibitions explaining the production process, the differences between various pastas and how best to cook them. A highlight is the Neapolitan Room, with its photos of film stars tucking into plateloads of the stuff.
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Complesso Monumentale Santo Spirito in Saxia
Originally an 8th-century lodging for Saxon pilgrims, this ancient hospital complex was established by Pope Innocent III in the late 12th century. Three hundred years later Sixtus IV added an octagonal courtyard and two vast frescoed halls, known collectively as the Corsia Sistina (Sistine Ward). A further highlight is the 16th-century Palazzo del Commendatore, where the central courtyard features a gracious double loggia.
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Museo di Roma in Trastevere
Trastevere’s traditions and folklore are celebrated at this small museum. The 1st-floor permanent collection comprises several re-creations of everyday scenes from 19th-century Trastevere, and a small selection of watercolours depicting communal life. It’s all very kitsch but the kids might enjoy it and it’s done well. The downstairs rooms are often used to stage temporary exhibitions.
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Museo Criminologico
Check out Rome’s dark side at this macabre museum of crime. Housed in a 19th-century prison, its gruesome collection runs the gamut from torture devices and murder weapons to fake Picassos, confiscated smut and the preserved brain of a 19th-century anarchist. You can read up about famous criminal cases and peer into the trunk used in the attempted 1964 kidnap of Israeli spy Mordechai Louk.
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Museo delle Cere
Madame Tussaud’s it ain’t, but Rome’s waxworks museum does at least provide some light-hearted relief from all the highbrow culture around you. The museum’s collection, said to be the world’s third largest, comprises more than 250 figures, ranging from Barak Obama to Snow White, Francesco Totti and a whole cast of popes, poets, politicians and murderers.
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Museo Barracco di Scultura Antica
One for the specialists, this charming museum boasts a fascinating collection of early Mediterranean sculpture. You’ll find Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Assyrian, Cypriot and Egyptian works, all donated to the state by Baron Giovanni Barracco in 1902. The palazzo housing the museum, known as the Piccolo Farnesina, was built for a French clergyman, Thomas Le Roy, in 1523.
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Museo delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari
You might well have to wake up the ticket-seller at this sleepy museum dedicated to folk art and rural tradition. Not one of Rome’s great museums, it’s nevertheless more interesting than it sounds, with an eclectic collection of agricultural and artisan tools, clothing, musical instruments and a room full of carnival costumes and artefacts.
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Keats-Shelley Memorial House
The Keats-Shelley Memorial House is where Keats died in 1821, while on an obviously unsuccessful holiday to improve his health. The cramped apartments now form an evocative museum, housing poems, letters and memorabilia from Keats’ fatal visit, including his death mask.
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Museo Centrale del Risorgimento
Inside the Vittoriano, the Museo Centrale del Risorgimento, often referred to as the Complesso del Vittoriano, hosts temporary art exhibitions and a small collection of military knick-knacks documenting the history of Italian unification.
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Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
One of Rome’s four patriarchal basilicas (the others being St Peter’s, San Giovanni in Laterano and San Paolo Fuori-le-Mura), the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore was built on the summit of the Esquilino in the 5th century.
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