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ROMA Things to see - Museums
In this page:
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Sistine Chapel (Vatican)
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Famous throughout the world, above all for the frescoes of Michaelangelo, the Sistine Chapel was constructed between 1475 and 1480 by Baccio Pontelli, under the order of Sistus IV.
It is on a rectangular plan with barreled vault and small side vaults. It has a pavement of polychromic inlay. The presbytery is divided by a barrier and opens out to 12 windows.
The internal decoration was assigned to many artists: Botticelli, Perugino, Ghirlandaio and Rosselli, assisted by Pinturicchio, Piero di Cosimo, Bartolomeo della Gatta and Signorelli. The work began in 1481 and lasted two years. In 1508 Julius II commissioned Michaelangelo to decorate the vault, which originally represented a starry heaven. After four years of intense work, this incredible work was finished. The vault is decorated by nine rectangular panels that show Genesis, the Expulsion from Paradise, and Noah. |
Twenty-five years later, in 1533, Michaelangelo began working on The Last Judgment, which he was asked to do by Clement VII. In less than one and a half years the masterpiece of 200 meters square, with 391 figures, was finished. The nudes, by order of Pius IV, were covered with draperies painted by Daniele da Volterra, who for this reason was called "Braghettone" ("bracche" are men's baggy undershorts).
This ridiculous intervention changed the message that Michaelangelo had wanted to give in his work.
Fortunately with the latest restoration, recently finished, the draperies have been removed and the colors and figures have returned to their original splendor and force.
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Borghese Gallery (via Pinciana)
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Constructed according to the plans of Giovanni Vasanzio between 1613 and 1615 for the cardinal Scipione Borghese, this was the greatest collection of art for its time.
The collection was continued by Marcantonio Borghese, then by Camillo Borghese, husband of Paolina Bonaparte, and finally by Luigi Canina. In 1902 it was acquired by the State. |
Crossing the portico, one enters the Salon, with its richly-painted ceiling and floor decorated with Roman mosaics of the second century. To the right one enters the first room, where one can admire the nineteenth-century statue of Paolina Borghese by Canova. In other rooms one finds the David of Bernini (1623-24), Apollo and Daphne, the Rape of Proserpina, Aeneas, Anchise and Ascanio, all by Bernini. From the Room of the Emperors one reaches the famous Gallery, in which one finds many celebrated masterpieces, including the Deposition by Raphael, a crucifix by Pinturicchio, the Virgin with Child and Saint John by Lorenzo di Credi, Saint John the Baptist by Bronzino, David with the head of Goliath by Caravaggio, the Deposition by Rubens, Sacred and Profane Love by Tiziano and other paintings of great value. |
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National Gallery of Ancient Art
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Where: Via delle Quattro Fontane
In the sixteenth-century Barbarini Palace (see chart) one finds the National Gallery of Ancient Art, displaying the works of the Corsini-Colonna collections and the gatherings of Barberini, Chigi and Sciarra.
Among the most significant works are the tryptic of the Beato Angelico showing the Final Judgement, the Ascension and Pentacost; two works by Filippo Lippi, the Virgin with Child and the Annunciation; the Magdalene by Piero di Cosimo, the Fornarina by Raphael; a fresco by Andrea Sacchi, the Nativity and Baptism of Christ, by El Greco; Christ and the Adulteress by Tintoretto; the fresco by Pietro da Cortona decorating the ceiling of the main room of the palace (the Allegory of Divine Providence). |
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Capitoline Museums (Piazza del Campidoglio)
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The Capitoline Museums are located in the Palace of the Conservators, built by Giacomo Della Porta according to the design of Michaelangelo in the second half of the fifteenth century, and in the New Palace, built by Girolamo Rainaldi in the seventeenth century (in front of the the Palace of the Conservators). .
In the Museum of the Palace of the Conservators are rows of rooms with works of great interest, including the Gallery of the Lamiani Orchards, with the Esquilina Venus; the room of the Magistrates, with statues from the fourth century; the Spinario, a bronze of the first century B.C.; the Wolf of the Campidoglio, an Etruscan bronze of the sixth century B.C. In the same building one finds the Capitoline Art Gallery, containing many paintings. The New Palace, northeast of the piazza of the Campidoglio, has a collection of many antique sculptures, including the so-called Capitoline Aphrodite, a Roman copy of a Hellenic statue, the Morente Galatea, copy of a work from the school of Pergamo of the third century B.C.; the Faun, a statue in red marble. Interesting also is the Room of the Emperors, with 65 busts representing famous people. |
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Vatican Museums (viale Vaticano)
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The Vatican Museums contain the largest collection of antiquities in the world. This itinerary follows that adopted by the Museum Administration: From the Atrium of the Four Gates one arrives at the Gregorian Egyptian Museum, which has eight rooms. Among the most interesting of the works contained here is the immense statue of the Queen Tuia, mother of Ramses II, and the basalt statue known as Naoforo, from 525 B.C. In the Chiaromonti Museum, organized by Canova in a gallery of Donato Bramante, about a thousand Greek and Roman statues are exposed, including large statues of Minerva, Augustus and Tiberius. The Pius-Clementine Museum is dedicated primarily to sculpture, the art which most interested Clement XIV.
The Gregorian-Etruscan Museum, made up of objects coming from southern Etruria and from private donations, presents one of the most beautiful collections in the world of Etruscan remains.
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Advancing sequentially, one finds the Biga Room, the Gallery of the Candalabra, the Arazzi Room and the Maps Room, the apartments of Pius V, the Sobieski Room, the Immaculate Conception Room and the Raphael Rooms. The latter are four large rooms in the apartment of Julius II and his successors up to Gregory XIII, in which the painter from Urbino began to work at the age of 26. This commission, which marked the debut of Raphael in Rome, concluded in the year of his death, 1520. Following are the Loggia of Raphael, the Palafrenieri Room, the Chapel of Nicolas V, the Borgia Apartments, the rooms containing the Collection of Modern Religious Art, the Sistine Chapel (see chart), the Vatican Library, the New Wing, the Art Gallery, the Museum Gregoriano Profano, the Christian Museum, the Ethnological Missionary Museum, and the Historical Museum. |
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