The Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani) are a collection of prestigious cultural institutions of the Holy See, housing vast and valuable collections of art and antiquities accumulated over the centuries by various popes. In addition to these relatively independent institutions, some of which have more or less autonomous subsections, the Vatican Museums also oversee a series of other spaces within the Vatican City's palaces, such as galleries and chapels, which hold significant architectural, historical, and artistic interest. Most of their collections are housed in the Vatican Museums Palace and the Vatican Pinacoteca.

The Sistine Chapel (in Latin: Sacellum Sixtinum; in Italian: Cappella Sistina), dedicated to the Assumption of Mary, is a chapel located in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in the Vatican City State. It is renowned for its architecture, inspired by the Old Testament's Temple of Solomon, and for its fresco decoration painted by the greatest artists of the Renaissance, including Michelangelo, Raphael, Perugino, and Sandro Botticelli. Erected by Giovannino de Dolci, the chapel was named in honor of Pope Sixtus IV, who restored the former Capella Magna between 1477 and 1480. During this period, a team of painters, including Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli, and Domenico Ghirlandaio, created a series of fresco panels depicting the lives of Moses and Christ, along with papal portraits and the ancestry of Jesus. These paintings were completed in 1482, and on August 15, 1483, Sixtus IV consecrated the first Mass in honor of the Assumption of Mary.