With 20,000 works are on display, the Vatican Museums display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of the most well-known Roman sculptures and most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world.

Founded in 1771 Clement XIV and enlarged by his successor Pius VI, Pio-Clementino Museum houses works of Greek and Roman sculpture.

The four Raphael Rooms are famous for their frescoes, painted by Raphael and his workshop. Together with Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes, they are the grand fresco sequences that mark the High Renaissance in Rome.

Commissioned in 1580 by Pope Gregory XIII, Gallery of the Maps contains a series of painted topographical maps of Italy based on drawings by friar and geographer Ignazio Danti.

Built between 1473 and 1481, the Sistine Chapel it is the site of the papal conclave, the process by which a new pope is selected. The fame of the Sistine Chapel lies mainly in the frescoes that decorate the interior, most particularly the Sistine Chapel ceiling and The Last Judgment, both by Michelangelo.