Museums of Italy – The Vatican Wonder
Besides being known as the one of the most romantic places to visit, Italy is also very well known for its richness in art and architecture. It is a must-visit place for art lovers since Italian cities house many world famous museums that showcase the finest, most popular Italian art that can enrich any art lover’s experience. Since there are thousands and thousands of museums in Italy, it will take weeks to cover the most important ones alone. Museums, particularly in Rome, Florence and Milan are popular and more than 1.5 million tourists visit these museums around the year.
The Vatican Museums are one of the greatest and most famous museums in the world housing close to thousand museums inside the Vatican City, Rome. The Vatican Museums display the art collection belonging to the Roman Catholic Church. These glorious arts have been collected from centuries, since the establishment of the museum in the 16th century. The crowning glory of the Vatican museums is the world renowned ‘Sistine Chapel’, which houses the works of Michelangelo, and his World-renowned masterpiece on the ceiling of the Chapel. Also, important to visit is the ‘Last Judgment’ which Michelangelo added to the collection after 20 years. The Sistine Chapel is the part of 54 galleries, all of which showcase magnanimous art collections. The access to Sistine Chapel is at last, after completing the tour of all 53 galleries, or ‘Salas’ as they are called. The most popular among the Salas are the Greek Cross Gallery, Sala Rotunda where the famous bronze statue of Hercules resides, Gallery of Statues, which contains world famous important statues like ‘Sleeping Ariadne’ and the ‘Barberini Candelabra’, Salla delle Muse that has the famous Apollo and the nine muses group of statues. The world famous ‘Gallery Of Maps’ which contains ancient painting of maps of Italy and different parts of the world, is also one of the highlights of the Vatican Museums. Visitors must make it a point to visit the ‘Gallery of Tapestries’, which contains wall hangings of exquisite workmanship from Fifteenth Century to Seventeenth Century.
Also on the must-visit list is the ‘The Raphael Rooms’ which are four interconnected rooms, which house the art works of the great artist, Raphael. Precious works of some of the world famous artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Angelico, Giotto, Nicolas Poussin, and Titian can be found at the Vatican Museums. The Vatican Museums are at their busiest on every last Sunday of the month, when it will be open to public for free. It is advised to purchase the tickets in advance for the weekday tours, or take a package tour of museums of The Vatican and Rome. This makes the entry to museums faster, and the wait to see the marvels of the world, a short one.
