The Vatican Museums is a huge museum complex that includes separate collections of ancient Rome, samples of modernity, early Christian and medieval church art, archaeological finds, historical artifacts, household items and books. The Vatican Museums are located in the historic rooms of the Belvedere, Pontifical and Lateran Palaces, the Vatican Library and Sistine Chapel.
The halls, salons, galleries and apartments of the Vatican are filled with numerous collections of ancient, Etruscan, Greek, Egyptian, Roman art, books and paintings - they all make up an exhibition path 7 kilometers long. Museums were founded at the beginning of the 16th century. Pope Julius II and further replenished and expanded by other popes for many centuries.
This complex includes the Gregorian museums - Egyptian (a collection of sarcophagi, granite statues, death masks and other archaeological finds) and Etruscan (terracotta vases and bronze, urns, ancient jewelry, architectural fragments, sarcophagi and other Etruscan heritage); sculpture museum of Pius-Clementine (ancient statues, marble baths and much more); Chiaramonti Museum (dedicated to ancient sculpture and ancient religious inscriptions); Candelabra Gallery (a collection of candlesticks from the 2nd century, vases, frescoes, statues and sarcophagi); Arazzi or Tapestry Gallery; Gallery of geographical maps; the magnificent Loggias and Stanzas of Raphael; Ethnological missionary (exposition of the history of religion) and Historical (illustrate the history of the Vatican state and the popes) museums; Apostolic Library (manuscripts, manuscripts, engravings, maps, incunabula, numismatic collections); Pinacotheque (a collection of over 450 religious and altar paintings); the Pio-Cristiano Museum (objects found in the Roman catacombs); Nicolina Chapel (unique frescoes by Fra Beato Angelico); The Borgia Apartments (the Hall of the Sivillas, the Hall of the Saints and the Hall of the Sacraments of the Faith - painted by Pinturicchio and his disciples); Gallery of Contemporary Religious Art and the priceless Sistine Chapel (ceiling frescoes by Michelangelo).