Museums to visit: collections and tickets
Bernini and Caravaggio at the Galleria Borghese, Raphael’s Rooms and the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican Museums: two museums to visit, each with its official ticket office.
Places to visit
Alessio Damato, CC BY-SATimed entryGalleria Borghese
Sculpture at the center of the rooms. The museum says the decoration of the rooms still reflects the criteria of the display Antonio Asprucci created from 1770: the greatest sculptures in the middle of each room, the decoration tied to them.Rome, Italyfrom €16
Wilfredor, CC0Vatican Museums
The Octagonal Court. Where Julius II placed his ancient statues early in the 16th century: the starting point of the whole collection.Vatican Cityfrom €20
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Two museums to visit, two ways of getting in
The Galleria Borghese is the villa built from 1607 for Cardinal Scipione Borghese inside the park of Villa Borghese. Its 20 frescoed rooms hold paintings by Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Antonello da Messina and Giovanni Bellini, and sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Antonio Canova. Visits run in two-hour shifts of 180 people at most, a new one every hour, and every ticket needs a reservation, the free ones included.
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The Vatican Museums stretch over some seven kilometers of galleries and received 6,882,931 visitors in 2024. One ticket covers the museums and the Sistine Chapel, and it is valid only on the day it is issued. The route passes the Laocoön and the Apollo Belvedere in the Pio Clementino Museum, the forty painted maps of the Gallery of the Geographical Maps, Raphael’s Rooms with the School of Athens, and the Pinacoteca.
What sets these two apart
- One official seller each. The Galleria Borghese sells on its own website, by call center and at the ticket office, and offers no skip-the-line access. The Vatican Museums warn that tickets.museivaticani.va is their only official online seller.
- Free Sundays on different dates. The Galleria Borghese is free on the first Sunday of the month, with a reservation and its fee still due. The Vatican Museums are free on the last Sunday of the month and closed on the other Sundays.
- Bags and silence. The Borghese admits only bags up to 21 x 15 cm. In the Sistine Chapel, photos and phones are forbidden and silence is requested.
- Roma Pass. The Galleria Borghese is part of the 48-hour and 72-hour cards, with a reservation still required.