Rome Museums

Rome is the capital city of Italy and the fourth highest populated city in the European Union. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber river.

Vatican City, the smallest country in the world, is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city. Thus Rome has sometimes been called the capital of two states.

A Virtual Tour of the Museums in Rome

The Vatican Museums
Capitoline Museums
St. Peter’s Basilica
National Roman Museum
- Palazzo Massimo alle Terme
- Palazzo Altemps
- Crypta Balbi
- Baths of Diocletian
Galleria Borghese
Villa Farnesina
National Gallery of Modern Art
National Etruscan Museum
Galleria Doria Pamphilj
Palazzo Barberini

Rome’s mythology dates the founding of Rome at around 753 BC; however, the site has been inhabited for longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The city’s early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans, and Sabines. Eventually, the city successively became the capital of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and is regarded by some as the first-ever metropolis.

Rome was first called The Eternal City by a Roman poet in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which marked the beginning of the Middle Ages, Rome slowly fell under the political control of the Papacy. In the 8th century, it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870.

Beginning with the Renaissance, almost all the popes pursued a developmental program for making the city the artistic and cultural center of the world. In this way, Rome became the first one of the major centers of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism.

Famous artists, painters, sculptors, and architects made Rome the center of their activity, creating masterpieces throughout the city. In 1871, Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, which, in 1946, became the Italian Republic.

Museums in Rome, Italy

The Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums are a collection of museums in Vatican City in Rome, Italy. The Vatican Museums showcases historical and artistic works from the vast selection of works collected by many Popes of the Catholic Church over many centuries.

The Vatican Museums’ collections are over 70,000 works, of which less than one-third are displayed at any point in time. There are 54 galleries in the museum, with one of the key attractions being the Sistine Chapel.

Capitoline Museums

The Capitoline Museums (Musei Capitolini) is made up of a group of art and archaeological museums in Piazza del Campidoglio, on top of the Capitoline Hill in Rome.

The Capitoline Museums are composed of three main buildings surrounding the Piazza and interlinked by an underground gallery.

St. Peter’s Basilica

The Papal Basilica of St. Peter is an Italian Renaissance church in Vatican City, the papal enclave within the city of Rome. St. Peter’s is the most renowned work of Renaissance architecture and the largest church in the world.

Catholic tradition holds that the Basilica is the burial site of Saint Peter, a leading Apostle of Jesus and the first Bishop of Rome. Saint Peter’s tomb is supposedly directly below the high altar of the Basilica.

National Roman Museum

The National Roman Museum, in Italian it is called Museo Nazionale Romano, is a collection of museums in separate buildings throughout the city of Rome, Italy.

The museums exhibit the pre-history and early history of Rome, with a focus on archaeological findings from the period of Ancient Rome.

Galleria Borghese

The Galleria Borghese is an art gallery in Rome, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana.

The Galleria Borghese houses the Borghese collection of paintings, sculptures, and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V (reign 1605–1621).

The Villa was originally designed and used as a country villa at the edge of Rome.

Rome – Top 10 Attractions

Colosseum
Roman Forum
St. Peter’s Square
St. Peter’s Basilica
Sistine Chapel
Pantheon
Catacombs
Trevi Fountain
Piazza Navona
Piazza di Spagna & the Spanish Steps

Museums in Rome

City: Rome
Italian: Roma
Country: Italy
Founded: c. 753 BC by King Romulus
Demonyms: Italian: romano (masculine), Romana (feminine), English: Roman
Population: 4.3 million

A Virtual Tour of Museums in Italy

Rome Museums and Historical Sites

The Vatican Museums
Capitoline Museums
St. Peter’s Basilica
National Roman Museum
Galleria Borghese
Villa Farnesina

Florence Museums

Uffizi Gallery
Academy’s Gallery
Palazzo Pitti

Milan Museums

Santa Maria Delle Grazie
Sforza Castle Museums
Brera Art Gallery, Pinacoteca di Brera
Museo Poldi Pezzoli

Bologna Museums

The Archaeological Civic Museum (MCA) of Bologna
Sanctuary of Santa Maria della Vita

Venice Museums

Gallerie dell’Accademia

Map of the Museums in Rome

Top 7 Museums to Visit

Roma – Musei Capitolini – Rome Capitoline Museums

Quotes about Rome

~~~

“I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.”
-Augustus

~~~

“Oh, Rome! My country! city of the soul!”
– Lord Byron

~~~

“A fool is one who admires other cities without visiting Rome.”
– Francesco Petrarca

~~~

“Rome – the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.”
– George Eliot

~~~

“Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning.”
-Giotto di Bondone

~~~

“When thou art in Rome, do as they do at Rome.”
-Miguel de Cervantes

~~~

“When in Rome, live as the Romans do; when elsewhere, live as they live elsewhere.”
– Saint Ambrose

~~~

“Rome is a place almost worn out by being looked at, a city collapsing under the weight of reference.”
– Graham Joyce

~~~

“Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.”
– Anotole Broyard

~~~

“From the dome of St. Peter’s, one can see every notable object in Rome… He can see a panorama that is varied, extensive, beautiful to the eye, and more illustrious in history than any other in Europe.”
– Mark Twain

~~~

“All the bad things that have ever happened to me have always happened in Rome.”
– Richard Burton

~~~

“How is it possible to say an unkind or irreverential word of Rome? The city of all time, and of all the world!”
– Nathaniel Hawthorne

~~~

“Rome is not like any other city. It’s a big museum, a living room that shall be crossed on one’s toes.”
– Alberto Sordi.

~~~

“Italy has changed. But Rome is Rome.”
– Robert De Niro

~~~

“Rome will exist as long as the Coliseum does; when the Coliseum falls, so will Rome; when Rome falls, so will the world.”
-Venerable Bede, Saint

~~~

“Yes, I have finally arrived to this Capital of the World! I now see all the dreams of my youth coming to life… Only in Rome is it possible to understand Rome.”
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~~~

“Rome has spoken; the case is concluded.”
– Saint Augustine

~~~

“Rome has grown since its humble beginnings that it is now overwhelmed by its own greatness.”
– Livy

~~~

“The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.”
– Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

~~~

“Yes, I have finally arrived to this Capital of the World! I now see all the dreams of my youth coming to life… Only in Rome is it possible to understand Rome.”
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe