Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel

The Vatican Museums are among the most important museums in the world. A visit to Rome would not be complete without visiting the Vatican Museums. The Popes of the past few centuries have collected and preserved some of the greatest masterpieces of art and some of the most valuable artifacts of past history. They wanted their own palaces with their personal art collections to be made available to the public. 

«The Vatican Museums must strive to be a place of beauty and welcome. They must embrace new forms of art. They must throw open their doors to people from around the world and serve as an instrument for dialogue between different cultures and religions, an instrument for peace. They must be alive! Not dusty repositories of the past reserved for the select few… but a vital [institution] which looks after the objects in its care to tell their stories to people today…» (Pope Francis, "My idea of art")