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Museum↕ | Focus↕ | Opened↕ | Annual Visitors (M)↕ | Highlight↕ | Known For↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vatican Museums | Papal collections | 1,506 | 6.8 | Sistine Chapel ceiling | Raphael Rooms, Laocoon, 54 galleries ending at Michelangelo's ceiling |
Galleria Borghese | Bernini and Caravaggio | 1,903 | 0.5 | Bernini's Apollo and Daphne | Timed tickets (2 hours), Borghese villa gardens, Caravaggio masterworks |
Capitoline Museums | Ancient Roman sculpture | 1,734 | 0.75 | Capitoline Wolf | World's oldest public museum, Michelangelo-designed piazza, Marcus Aurelius bronze |
Museo Nazionale Romano (Palazzo Massimo) | Roman antiquities | 1,889 | 0.3 | Villa Livia frescoes | Best Roman frescoes and mosaics in the city, Augustus statues |
MAXXI | 21st-century art and architecture | 2,010 | 0.3 | Zaha Hadid building itself | Hadid's flowing concrete design, Italy's national contemporary museum |
Palazzo Barberini | Old Master paintings | 1,949 | 0.25 | Raphael's La Fornarina | Bernini and Borromini staircases, Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes |
Galleria Doria Pamphilj | Old Master paintings | 1,651 | 0.2 | Velazquez portrait of Innocent X | Family-owned private collection, audioguide narrated by Prince Jonathan Doria |
Ara Pacis Museum | Augustan altar of peace | 2,006 | 0.25 | Ara Pacis altar reliefs | Richard Meier glass pavilion (Rome's first modern building in the center) |
Castel Sant'Angelo | Papal fortress | 1,925 | 1.2 | Terrace views of St. Peter's | Hadrian's mausoleum, secret papal passage to the Vatican, Tosca setting |
Museo dell'Ara Pacis | Roman imperial art | 2,006 | 0.25 | Augustus propaganda reliefs | Meier white-box architecture beside Mausoleum of Augustus |
Baths of Diocletian | Roman epigraphy and baths | 1,889 | 0.2 | Michelangelo's Santa Maria degli Angeli | Part of the National Roman Museum, biggest ancient bath complex preserved |
Palazzo Altemps | Ludovisi ancient sculpture | 1,997 | 0.2 | Ludovisi Throne | Renaissance palazzo, Boncompagni-Ludovisi collection of Roman copies |
Centrale Montemartini | Classical sculpture in an old power plant | 1,997 | 0.1 | Togatus Barberini | Capitoline overflow displayed against turbines, Industrial vs Classical contrast |
Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia | Etruscan art | 1,889 | 0.1 | Sarcophagus of the Spouses | World's best Etruscan collection, Pope Julius III villa by Vignola |
MACRO | Contemporary art | 1,999 | 0.1 | Odile Decq wing | Rome's municipal contemporary museum in a former brewery |
Galleria Spada | Baroque paintings | 1,927 | 0.05 | Borromini's forced-perspective gallery | Optical-illusion colonnade that looks 35m long but is only 8m |
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