To many this is the least interesting part of the Vatican: 500 pieces of 20th-century religious painting and sculpture. Some of it is quite good; much of it, however, is schlock.
The bulk of it was gathered via donation by Pope Paul VI in the early 1970s in an attempt to revitalize Christianity as a theme in art.
Most interesting, in my opinion, are the Matisses.
For years, my favorite corner was the bit exhibiting several colorful ecclesiastical robes designed by Matisse during his cutouts phase.
Then, in June 2011, the Vatican took what had been a large room with little in it (other than a large, amorphous stone statue of the Madonna by Lucio Fontana, which proved too large to move so it's still there) and transformed it into the Matisse Chapel, a space for the display of Matisse's full-sized studies and designs for the Chapelle du Saint-Marie du Rosaire in the French Riviera town of Vence.
These include magnificent, 5-meter (16.5-foot) high paper cutout collages in green, yellow that served as the models for the actual chapel's stained glass windows, and the massive line drawing of a Madonna and Child the, in the chapel, is exectured as a wall sculpture of white ceramic panels. (Mary, unusually, is holding up the baby as if presenting him to the world rather than cradling him as was the artistic tradition.)
All of these works were dontated to the Vatican by the artist's son, Pierre in 1980. It just took the Vatican many years to figure out how to present the works properly (temperature and humidity must be strictly controlled to preserve the delicate paper).
There are also works by Chagall, Braque, Dalí, Kandinsky, Henry Moore, Morandi, Lipchitz, Picasso, Léger, Gauguin, Utrillo, and Van Gogh.
Viale Vaticano (on the north side of the Vatican City walls, between where Via Santamaura and the Via Tunisi staircase hit Viale Vaticano; about a 5–10 minute walk around the walls from St. Peter's).
tel. +39-06-6988-4676 or +39-06-6988-3145
www.museivaticani.va or www.vatican.va
Mon–Sat 9am–6pm (last entry: 4pm)
* May 2–July 25 and Sept 5–Oct 31 also open Fridays 7–11pm with advance booking (» more)
* Open the last Sun of each month 9:30am–2pm—and it's free!... and terribly crowded
* For other closed dates, see "tips" below
€16
Roma Pass: No
Tickets: Select Italy or Viator
Bus: 49; 490, 492, 496; 23, 32, 81,Tram 19, 271, 492, 590, 982, 990
Metro: Cipro-Musei Vaticani (A)
See "Tips" for more info
Planning your day: You end up walking though much of this en route between other parts of the Vatican. Expect both the walking (lots of small rooms, up and downs lots of stairs) and the slowing down to look at the best bits to total maybe 30–40 minutes.
You can book Vatican entry tickets ahead of time to help avoid the lines, which can last for up to an hour or so in the summer. However, this adds a €4 fee to the already steep admission of €16 at www.vatican.va. Or you can do it online via one of our partners:
Vatican tours: There are two-hour tours of the museums and Sistine Chapel available (in English usually four time a day) for €32 per person. Three-hour tours that also include St. Peter's cost €37. Note, though, that those prices include the €16 admisison ticket and €4 booking fee, so the tour portion actually only costs an extra €12–€15. For more info: tel. +39-06-6988-3145 or www.vatican.va.
If you prefer a private guided tour of the Vatican and its museums, book one via our partner sites Viator.com or Context Travel:
The Vatican Museums are free on the last Sunday of each month, when they stay open until 2pm (last entry: 12:30pm). This, however, is no secret, so they are also intensely crowded.
On any other Sunday, however, the Vatican Museum are closed—and if that final Sunday of the month happens falls on a church holiday (see below), they also remain closed.
The Vatican is also free on Sept. 27 (World Tourism Day)..
The Vatican Museums are most crowded on Sundays (because they're free) and many Wednesdays (because in the morning St. Peter's itself is often closed for the papal audience in the piazza, so everyone who doesn't have tickets walks around the walls to kill time inside the museums, and by afternoon all the audience-goers join them).
The Vatican has been experimenting with reopening the museums on Friday evenings in spring and early summer then again in fall allowing a limited number of visitors—upon advance booking only—to wander the mooonlit galleries without the crowds.
More info: www.vatican.va.
To book: Viator.com
The Vatican Museums are closed on all church holidays: Jan. 1, Jan. 6, Feb. 11, Mar. 19, Easter Sunday and Monday, May 1, June 29 (Feast of St. Peter and Paul—major Roman holiday), Aug. 14–15 (everything is closed in Rome on Aug. 15; head to Santa Maria Maggiore for mass with a "snowfall" of rose petals), Nov. 1, Dec. 25 (Merry Christmas!), and Dec. 26 (Santo Stefano—huge in Italy).
Note that the Vatican Museums close surprisingly early (last entry at 4pm, doors close 6pm).
So see the Museums first, then walk around the walls to visit St. Peter's.
Recently, the Vatican (or at least some guards) seems to have decided that you must dress "appropriately" to visit any part of Vatican City—including the museums—and not just St. Peter's, where a dress code has long applied.
Err on the side of caution and make sure you arrive with no bare shoulders, knees or midriffs.
That means: no shorts, no miniskirts, no sleeveless shirts or blouses, no tank-tops. Also, no hats.(If it's hot and you want to wear a tank top around town that day, just bring a light shawl to cover your shoulders while inside; » more on packing the right items for an Italy trip.)
Also, you cannot bring into the museum any bag or backpack larger than 40cm x 35cm x 15cm (roughly 16" x 14" x 6")—there is a cloackroom where you can leave it.
Cipro-Musei Vaticani is the closest Metro stop (on the A line, about 5 blocks northwest of the entrance; just follow the crowds).
Otherwise, bus 49 stops right in front of the museum entrance (you can catch it from Piazza Cavour, or anywhere along Via Cescenzio, which starts at the northwestern tip of the piazza, near Castel Sant'Angelo).
You can also take bus 490, 492, 496, N1 to Via Candia (two blocks north of the entrance), or one of many bus lines to Piazza del Risorgimento, tucked into a inside corner of the Vatican walls a short walk east of the musuems entrance: 23, 32, 81,Tram 19, 271, 492, 590, 982, 990, N11.
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Viale Vaticano (on the north side of the Vatican City walls, between where Via Santamaura and the Via Tunisi staircase hit Viale Vaticano; about a 5–10 minute walk around the walls from St. Peter's).
tel. +39-06-6988-4676 or +39-06-6988-3145
www.museivaticani.va or www.vatican.va
Mon–Sat 9am–6pm (last entry: 4pm)
* May 2–July 25 and Sept 5–Oct 31 also open Fridays 7–11pm with advance booking (» more)
* Open the last Sun of each month 9:30am–2pm—and it's free!... and terribly crowded
* For other closed dates, see "tips" below
€16
Roma Pass: No
Tickets: Select Italy or Viator
Bus: 49; 490, 492, 496; 23, 32, 81,Tram 19, 271, 492, 590, 982, 990
Metro: Cipro-Musei Vaticani (A)
See "Tips" for more info
This article was written by Reid Bramblett and was last updated in March 2014.
All information was accurate at the time.
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