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Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
Legend has it that in 352 Pope Liberius dreamt he was told by the Virgin Mary to build a church on the spot that he found snow. When, the following morning, the 5th of August in the middle of a hot summer, snow fell on the Esquilino, he began building. Every year thousands of white petals are released from the basilica's coffered gilt ceiling in commemoration.
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Biblioteca e Raccolta Teatrale del Burcardo
Rome's little-known theatre museum includes dazzling costumes worn by acting greats such as Eleonora Duse, fin de siècle playbills, set design artwork, and exquisite 18th-century Chinese marionettes. The lack of English information doesn't detract from the appeal and there's a well-stocked theatre library (mostly Italian) on the 2nd floor.
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Capitoline Museums
Boasting some of ancient Rome's most spectacular sculpture, the Capitoline Museums (Musei Capitolini) are quite magnificent. The world's oldest national museums, they date to 1471, when Pope Sixtus IV donated a number of bronze statues to the city, forming the nucleus of what is now one of Italy's finest collections of classical art. The collection is today beautifully housed in Palazzo Nuovo and Palazzo dei Conservatori on Piazza del Campidoglio.
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Capitoline Museums at Centrale Montemartini
This modern outpost of the Capitoline Museums is a treat. Housed in a former power station, it has an industrial look, with classical sculpture boldly juxtaposed against diesel engines and giant furnaces. On the ground floor beyond the entrance is the Sala Colonne, where sculpture and ceramics dating from the 7th century BC are displayed. These include Etruscan and Greek pieces as well as discoveries from a necropolis on the Esquilino.
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Casa di Goethe
A gathering place for German artists and intellectuals, the Via del Corso apartment where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lived between 1786 and 1788 is now a lovingly maintained museum. Exhibits include documents relating to his Italian sojourn and some interesting drawings and etchings - including a 1982 Andy Warhol portrait of the great man. With advance permission, ardent Goethe fans can use the library full of first editions.
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Edicola Notte
Blink and you might miss it! At 1m wide and 7m long, Edicola Notte is Rome's tiniest art gallery. Established by Chinese-Malay artist and expat HH Lim, it's a peek-from-the-street affair, lit up each night for voyeuristic passers-by. And before you start making size jokes, remember, it's what you do with it that counts - past exhibitors include art world heavies such as Jannis Kounellis, Yan Pei Ming and Yang Jiechang.
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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 hospital outpatients' department 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.
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Fondazione Volume!
Head to this former glass factory for experimental, site-specific installations from A-list local and global artists. Past exhibitors include Jannis Kounellis, Sol Lewitt, Bernhard Rudiger and Marina Paris - each in turn have transformed the tiny space into completely different realities.
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Gagosian Gallery
In December 2007, contemporary art heavyweight Gagosian added Rome to its portfolio, converting a 1920s bank into a gallery designed by Firouz Galdo and Caruso St John. Its debut exhibition featured the work of Rome-based American artist Cy Twombly.
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Galleria Colonna
An extravagant work of art in its own right, this opulent six-room gallery houses the Colonna family's private art collection. It's not the capital's largest collection but it's highly regarded and well worth the ticket price. Entry is on Via della Pilotta, a picturesque street spanned by four arches connecting Palazzo Colonna to its private gardens.
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Galleria Lorcan O'Neill
Kick-started by a London art dealer and set in a converted stable, this is one of Rome's most respected private galleries. It was also one of the first to bring edgy international names to the city - think Tracey Emin, Max Rental, Matvey Levenstein, as well as local talent such as Luigi Ontani and Pietro Ruffo.
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Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica
A must for anyone into Renaissance and baroque art, this glorious gallery is housed in one of Rome's most spectacular palazzi . Commissioned by Pope Urban VIII to celebrate the Barberini family's rise to papal power in 1623, Palazzo Barberini was worked on by a who's who of 17th-century architects: designed by Carlo Maderno and then his nephew Borromini after his death, with a staircase by Bernini and a fresco by Pietro da Cortona.
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Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica di Palazzo Corsini
Originally known as Palazzo Riario after Cardinal Domenico Riario, who commissioned it in 1510, Palazzo Corsini owes its current look to a 1736 makeover by Ferdinando Fuga. Over the years a number of esteemed guests have stayed here - Michelangelo, Erasmus and Bramante among them - but the palazzo is most readily associated with Queen Christina of Sweden, who took up residency in 1662 and is said to have entertained male and female lovers here.
Read more about Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica di Palazzo Corsini
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Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
Here, in a vast belle époque palace, you'll find works by some of the most important exponents of modern Italian art. There are canvases by the macchiaioli (the Italian Impressionists) and the futurists (including Boccioni and Balla), as well as major works by Modigliani and De Chirico. International artists are also represented, with works by Degas, Cezanne, Kandinsky, Klimt, Mondrian and Henry Moore.
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Galleria Pino Casagrande
Take the goods lift to the 5th floor of the legendary Pastificio Cerere for intelligent, progressive art at this small, top-notch gallery. Past exhibitors include German photographer Jan Bauer and local sound artist Piero Mottola.
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Keats-Shelley House
Next to the Spanish Steps, the Keats-Shelley House is where John Keats died in February 1821. He'd come to Rome a year earlier, hoping the Italian climate would improve his failing health. Unfortunately it didn't, and he died at the age of 25. A year later, Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned off the coast of Tuscany. The house is now a small museum crammed with memorabilia relating to the two poets and their colleagues Mary Shelley and Lord Byron.
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Macro Future
Housed in Rome's ex-slaughterhouse, MACRO's second gallery (the main one is in northern Rome) - serves up experimental art in two cavernous industrial halls. Recent shows have included the work of Anish Kapoor, John Bock and Russia's AES+F collective.
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Maxxi
Sporting concrete curves from Anglo-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, this much anticipated, much delayed museum of 21st-century art and architecture is now scheduled to officially open in summer 2009. When the doors do finally open, you can expect exhibitions spanning anything from urban architecture to the cyborg body.
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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 of which were donated to the state by Baron Giovanni Barracco in 1902.
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Museo Carlo Bilotti
The art collection of billionaire business magnate Carlo Bilotti is housed here, 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.
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Museo Criminologico
Boost your revenge fantasies at Rome's Criminology Museum, with its motley assortment of vintage torture devices, weapons and executioners' knives. Eye-up fake Picassos and confiscated smut, read about the gun-toting contessa and peek into the infamous trunk used in the 1964 kidnapping of Israeli spy Mordechai Louk.
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Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma (Macro)
Contemporary art displays in a former brewery are what you pay for here. A slick, light-filled gallery, it was designed by Odile Decq to house an interesting collection of post-1960s art, including works by all of Italy's important post-WWII artists. Temporary exhibitions are also held here, many of which highlight the works of emerging international artists.
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Museo del Palazzo di Venezia
Designed by Francesco del Borgo in the 15th century, Rome's first great Renaissance palace is home to this museum, which holds an eclectic collection of Byzantine and early Renaissance paintings, camp ceramics, tapestries, arms and armour. Major exhibitions are often held in Sala del Mappamondo (Mussolini's ex-office).
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Museo dell'Ara Pacis
After years of controversy and on-off construction, architect Richard Meier's luminous glass-and-travertine pavilion was finally unveiled in 2006. The first modern construction in Rome's centro storico since WWII, it now threatens to upstage what it's meant to highlight - the Ara Pacis Augustae (Altar of Peace), Augustus' great monument to the peace he established at home and abroad.
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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.
