sistine chapel after hours tour

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Vatican Museum After Hours Private Tour With Aperitif – Vip Experience

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Vatican Museum After Hours. A truly classy experience! A glass in hand as you explore the lovely galleries at the Vatican Museums with a private guide.

Vatican Museum After Hours. Inclusions:

Vatican museums, sistine chapel.

Vatican Museum After Hours Private Tour with Aperitif 3 hrs. | Start: 7.15 p.m. | VIP Experience | Meeting Point: Entrance of Vatican Museums, by the marble arch at the bottom of the steps. This is an evening tour not to be missed. A fresh Italian cocktail while exploring the galleries in the Vatican Museums. Then, visit the charming Sistine Chapel in the quiet of the night. An unforgettable experience awaits. The evening tours of the Vatican Museum are only offered every Friday during the summer months. This tour is ideal for visitors who wish to avoid the harsh summer sun and prefer to tour in the cool of the night. You will get to experience a beloved Italian evening tradition call called an ‘Aperitivo’ or also known as an ‘Aperitif,’ which is a starter drink before a meal. Along with it, you will be sampling some snacks as well.

Vatican Museum After Hours | Would skip the line tickets come on you will enter right into the Vatican museums to begin your tour. Upon arrival, you will be offered an aperitive which is usually an alcoholic drink, but if you don’t drink alcohol please let us know before that war so that we can organize another drink for you. You will also enjoy some Italian snacks before your tour begins. Your expert private guide who has deep knowledge of art in history will take you to the many galleries such as – Gallery of Tapestries, Gallery of Maps, Gallery of Tapestries, Gallery of the Candelabra and Raphael’s Rooms. You are going to see artwork, sculptures tapestry, maps and so much more.

Vatican Museum After Hours | Before you enter the Sistine Chapel, you will be briefed by your guide as speaking is not allowed inside the Chapel. Here you will see Renaissance art at its best. You will see the beautiful ceilings painted by Michelangelo which took almost five years to paint. Some images to look out for are – The Creation of Adam, Separation of Land from Sea, Separation of Light from Darkness and The Flood.

The Vatican Museum After Hours Tour Is An Unmissable Tour Of Indulgence!

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Vatican Museum After Hours. Important Reminder – Vatican Museum After Hours Private

Tour with aperitive vip experience.

• There is a dress code to the Vatican which applies to children too. Shoulders and knees must be covered.
• St Peter’s Basilica is not part of this tour as it is closed in the evenings.
• The Vatican Museums get rather busy during summer and after a bank holiday.
• Not available for wheelchair users
• Rome Vip Tours

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Alone In The Vatican: Exclusive VIP Access Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel Tour

275 reviews

Why take this tour?

• Join one of the most exclusive Vatican tours with super-special early and after-hours access.
• Relish in the serenity of the Vatican, spending two hours alone with your small group and expert guide wandering the silent and elegant halls.
• Marvel at one of the most iconic artistic masterpieces in the world—Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel—with almost nobody else around.
• Explore the Vatican Museums in-depth with an expert guide. You’ll have easy access to them, who can answer any question you have about this extraordinary destination.
• Sites Visited
• Vatican Museums
• Sistine Chapel
• Raphael Rooms
• Pinecone Courtyard
• Gallery of the Candelabra
• Gallery of the Maps
• Gallery of the Tapestries
• Octagonal Courtyard
• Tour Includes
• Local English-speaking guide
• Expertly guided walking tour
• Skip-the-line ticket to the Vatican Museums
• VIP access to the Sistine Chapel

Embark on a guided journey through the Sistine Chapel that few people get to experience.

Total customer reviews: 275, latest reviews.

Meeting Point

Meeting Point   

Vatican Museums Entrance. Meet on the short flight of stairs in front of the entrance door. These doors are surrounded by white marble and have "Mvsei Vaticani" engraved above the door in the stone. Your guide will be holding a green Walks sign.  

Please meet 15 minutes prior to the tour start time.   

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Travel Home > Italy > Rome Tours > VIP Vatican

Exclusive After-Hours Vatican VIP Private Tour and Sistine Chapel

Officially licensed guides, private tours of italy, flexible rescheduling, after-hours private vatican tour.

Have you  ever dreamt of being able to visit the Vatican and Sistine Chapel without the crowds ? Italy by Luxe can make this happen.

On our exclusive VIP tour, we arrange  completely private openings of the Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel just for you .

We start our journey in the evening when the museums have been closed to the public. We will be greeted by the custodians who will have the keys to open the large doors to the Vatican Museums as you begin your private tour experience which culminates in a private viewing inside the glorious Sistine Chapel.

Rooms of The Vatican and Sistine Chapel Visited On The VIP Tour

In the Vatican Museum we will visit the following: 

• The Gallery of the Candelabra
• The Room of the Tapestries
• The Room of the Maps

As part of this experience, we will also  visit Raphael’s Rooms . The rooms, commissioned by Pope Julius II are four rooms painted by  the master Raphael  in the 16th century. We will view:

• The Room of Constantine
• The Room of Heliodorus 
• The Room of the Signature (segnatura) – home to one of Raphael’s most famous works, the School of Athens
• The Room of the Fire in the Borgo

The tour concludes with  an exclusive tour of the Sistine Chapel  where you can really take the time to savor the majesty and magnificence of the masterpieces on display including:

• The interior of the Chapel
• The world Famous Fresco’s and artworks by luminaries like Botticelli
• Sistine Chapel ceiling & The Last Judgment by Michelangelo

Exclusive After-Hours Access To The Vatican Museum Rooms

We will start our private 2-hour journey through the corridors of the magnificent museums –  just you, your guide & a private Vatican custodian to accompany you on the journey .

The Vatican Museums were not originally designed as a museum space; instead, the museums are actually part of the private palaces of the Popes hence you will be able to feel the majesty of the space as it was designed to be experienced.  Privately . The silence of the corridors, the time & space to experience & understand the majesty of the works of art that grace the halls.

Private Sistine Chapel Tour

Finally, we will descend the private staircase and  visit Michelangelo’s masterpiece : the Sistine Chapel.

Named after Pope Sixtus IV, the Sistine Chapel has always been a private chapel of the Popes as well as the space for the conclave (where Popes are elected by the Cardinals). Prior to Michelangelo’s ceiling, many Renaissance artists had a hand in the frescoes along the walls including  Botticelli ,  Perugino ,  Rosselli  &  Ghirlandaio . 

With your expert guide, you will receive a detailed explanation of the magnificent frescoes (something that is never allowed during normal opening times). From the greatest frescoes including the  Creation of Man to the Last Judgement , you will be able to reflect on Michelangelo’s work in the silence & reverence in which it was designed to be experienced.

VIP Vatican Tour Details

Availability: To be arranged with the Vatican Museums (Sundays are not possible; Friday evenings are only available between November – March)

Duration: 2 hours

Meeting point: At your Rome accommodation

Inclusions:

• Private opening of the Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel
• Private officially-licensed guide
• Return private chauffeured Mercedes Benz transfers from/to your centrally located Rome accommodation

Additional Private Opening Options:

After meeting your guide & Mercedes Benz driver at your centrally located Rome accommodation, you will be whisked to the entrance to the Vatican Museums where at 6am the doors will be opened by the Vatican’s official keyholder or ‘Clavigero’. You will accompany him through the museums to the Atrium of the Quattro Cancelli where he will pick up the historic bunch of 300 keys including the keys to the Sistine Chapel.

After this, you will be accompanied to the Sistine Chapel where your guide will explain its magnificent frescoes or leave you in silence to enjoy one of the greatest artistic masterpieces in the world. 

Finally, you will head to the Cortile della Pigna for breakfast before continuing your private tour of the Vatican Museums prior to the general public opening time of 9 am.

For prices or to book a private viewing of the opening of the Sistine Chapel with the Official Keyholder, get in touch with our team by filling out the form below . 

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Contact Us About Our VIP Private Vatican and Sistine Chapel Tour

Our exclusive Vatican tour is in great demand, and naturally, bookings for such a unique experience have to be made in advance of your arrival in Rome.

To find out about available dates please contact us using the online inquiry form below:

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Take a Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museums Tour

Ed Freeman / Getty Images

Visiting the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel when they're closed to the general public is an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experience. During normal opening hours, the Vatican Museums are almost always crowded, and the sheer mass of people can sometimes make it feel like you are being herded through the many galleries and corridors. Between the crowds and the vastness of the museums, it can be difficult to fully appreciate the experience.

Tour company The Roman Guy is one of a handful of outfits in Rome who can gain privileged, small-group access to the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. Depending on which tour you choose, your group of 12 or so people may be the only ones in the Sistine Chapel—an amazing and spine-tingling experience for lovers of art and history. The Roman Guy's expert guides will lead you through other important museum collections, pointing out items of special interest and providing background information.

The premium privileged access tour is the VIP After Hours Tour, when it's just your small group and your private guide. Another option, the small group Vatican Under the Stars Evening Tour is available on Friday evenings. The 3-hour tour starts with Saint Peter's Basilica, then continues to the Vatican Museums, where you'll take a guided journey through art history, and on to the Sistine Chapel. The museum is open on Friday evenings but to a much more limited number of people, so it will be much less crowded than during the day.

For early risers, the Pre-Opening Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St.Peter's Basilica Private Tour begins one hour before opening time, starting with the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel and then continuing into Saint Peter's Basilica. Crowds will be smaller than during regular daytime tours, although it will get more crowded toward the end of the tour.

Other Private Tours

The only tour guides who are allowed to lead before or after hours tours are those who are Vatican City accredited tour operators so not all tour companies can provide VIP access.  Context Travel , Select Italy  and Italy With Us  are among the recommended companies offering high-end, private, after-hours tours of the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel.

The Vatican Museums average 20,000 visitors per day so taking a privileged entrance tour is definitely the best way to visit. These tours should be booked at least 2 weeks in advance. Note that the Museums and Sistine Chapel are part of the Catholic Church and proper dress is required—knees and shoulders must be covered and hats must be removed.

The Vatican Museums

With more than 1400 rooms, the Vatican Museums is the world's largest museum complex. Pope Julius II was a patron of Renaissance artists and first opened the first museum in the early 16th century to house his private collection. New popes added their collections and now there's an amazing amount of art, spanning 3,000 years of history and culture, displayed in the pontifical museums and galleries.

The Sistine Chapel

The famous Sistine Chapel was built from 1473-1481 as both the pope's private chapel and the venue for the election of the new pope by the cardinals. Michelangelo painted the famous ceiling and altar frescoes, with the central scenes on the ceiling depicting creation and the story of Noah, a task that took him more than 4 years. Painting frescoes was a new experience for Michelangelo and he applied his knowledge of sculpting to his painting, making figures appear solid and sculptural, but also more lifelike.

Saint Peter's Basilica

Saint Peter's Basilica, built on the site of an earlier church covering the Apostle Peter's tomb, is one of the largest churches in the world. Entrance is free but there's a lot to see, so having a guided tour is very helpful in making sense of it all. Many important artworks, including Michelangelo's famous Pieta , are in the church. You can also visit the Pope's tombs. 

Getting to the Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums entrance lies between the Cipro and Ottaviano stops on the metro line A (red line). Bus 49 stops near the entrance and tram 19 also stops nearby. Follow signs to Musei Vaticani . If you take a taxi, be sure to say Vatican Museums to be dropped off near the entrance, which is not on Saint Peter's Square.

Where to Stay Near the Vatican

For before and after hours tours, it may be convenient to stay in a Rome hotel or bed and breakfast near the Vatican. See Top Places to Stay by Vatican City.

The original writer was provided with a complimentary tour for review purposes. 

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After Hours Visit to the Vatican Museums & the Sistine Chapel

An exclusive, private after hours Vatican Museums tour. Let Italy’s Best organize this once in a lifetime experience with a expert guide.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• This exclusive tour of the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel begins after it closes to the general public .
• Visit the Vatican art galleries after closing hours  — a special once-in-a-lifetime experience
• Visit the Museo Pio Clementino, Le Stanze di Raffaello (The Raphael Rooms) painted by Raffaelo for Pope Julius II,
• End in the  fabled Sistine Chapel where you’ll get to experience the magic of viewing Michelangelo’s masterpiece without the crowds.

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Private Vatican Tour with Sistine Chapel, Fast-Access Tickets

• Guaranteed to skip the long lines
• Private tour
• Local guide
• Professional art historian guide
• Entry/Admission - Vatican Museums
• Entry/Admission - Sistine Chapel
• Entry/Admission - St. Peter's Basilica
• Entry/Admission - Vatican City
• Guaranteed to skip the lines
• Private transportation
• Caffè Vaticano, viale, Viale Vaticano, 100, 00192 Roma RM, Italy Vatican Museums entrance, on the stairs under the big white gates with statues. Address: viale vaticano
• Not wheelchair accessible
• Stroller accessible
• Near public transportation
• Infant seats available
• Confirmation will be received at time of booking
• A dress code is required to enter places of worship and selected museums. No shorts or sleeveless tops allowed. Knees and shoulders MUST be covered for both men and women. You may risk refused entry if you fail to comply with these dress requirements
• Most travelers can participate
• READ CAREFULLY: Because of the growing popularity of the current pope Francis and his intense activity in organising mass events in the Vatican some areas might get closed last minute without previous notice. This has already happened this year and can happen again during you Vatican tour: the Sistine chapel and/or the Basilica of Saint Peter might not be accessible. In case of such events our tour guide will provide you with a valuable alternative focusing the tour inside the Vatican museums.
• This is a private tour/activity. Only your group will participate
• All sales are final and incur 100% cancellation penalties.
• Vatican Museums
• Sistine Chapel
• St. Peter's Basilica

Similar experiences

• You'll start at Caffè Vaticano viale, Viale Vaticano, 100, 00192 Roma RM, Italy Vatican Museums entrance, on the stairs under the big white gates with statues. Address: viale vaticano See address & details
• 1 Vatican Museums Stop: 60 minutes - Admission included See details
• 2 Sistine Chapel Stop: 60 minutes - Admission included See details
• 3 St. Peter's Basilica Stop: 60 minutes - Admission included See details
• 4 Vatican City Stop: 10 minutes - Admission included See details
• You'll return to the starting point

• dimpys2013 0 contributions 1.0 of 5 bubbles Terrible service and communication..donot get scammed! We booked the Skip the line Colosseum tour reading their wonderful reviews. We took a wrong train and informed them that we will be 5-7mins late. We rushed to the entrance gate of Colosseum to catch the tour but there was no communication to connect us with the guide. We then waited for 2 hours at the exit gate to catch the tour halfway, looking and asking every guide holding a red flag but there was none from the Tour or Roman Guy! While we waited there was no communication from the company and at the start they mentioned that those tours are third party and they have no connection with the guide. If you don’t want to get scammed don’t book with these guys! Hope no one else have to go through this! Read more Written February 22, 2024
• Brad K 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles A lot of information This was a very nice tour. I had heard about the dense crowds and being rushed through the areas of interest, it did not feel rushed at all on this tour. Our guide was Ukrainian but has lived in Rome over 20 years and has done his homework. Very knowledgeable and spoke very clear English. The headsets made it easy to hear regardless of where one was in relation to the guide. Read more Written February 20, 2024
• billtT7665DH 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Excellent Colosseum tour Faby was our guide and spectacular. She really knew her history and material well. She gave us all the particulars of the Colosseum and was very informative. We had a great time. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!! Read more Written February 15, 2024
• 26X62 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Great guide! Raffa was our guide. She is born and raised in Rome so there was so much to learn about the local community from her. Very knowledgeable and kindhearted. She keeps the pace very consistent and interesting the whole day. Excellent tour with Raffa Read more Written November 23, 2023
• 628lynnf 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Great Experience through the Tour Guy with Raffa! Raffa was our guide through The Tour Guy. She is a native Roman and very knowledgeable and personable and INTERESTING!! She had many anecdotal facts which were fascinating! She kept a good pace so we could see everything in 3 hours and even took pictures of everyone in the group at the Flavian Amphitheater Read more Written November 16, 2023
• Thomas M 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Awesome Thomas was fantastic! He gave us an in-depth history lesson so that we could appreciate what we were about to see before we entered the Sistine chapel and Saint Peter‘s cathedral. We bypassed all the lines and we’re amazed by all that we saw under Thomas’s guidance. Read more Written October 8, 2023
• marygJ2513OK 0 contributions 2.0 of 5 bubbles Not very pleasant and unhappy with customer service I Vatican tour guide was very knowledgeable and pleasant. However, there were 18 people in our group, and every part of the tour was a bit stressful because they were so many tourists packed into the spaces throughout the Vatican tour. It seemed unsafe at times, where we were just squashed together. I was in constant fear of losing the tour guide. We did lose one couple for a while because of the crowd pushing. I would not do this again. I really could not enjoy the Vatican. The second tour we had to cancel because my husband was sick. We tried to call more than 24 hours before the start of the tour, but was unable to get through…just recordings. When I was able to get Internet, we emailed saying we were unable to make the tour. This was only one hour and a half later than the 24 hour deadline…22 1/2 hours before the start of the tour. We were very disappointed that they would not give us a refund after asking them several times . I would not use this tour company again. Read more Written September 28, 2023
• AndrewsBristol 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Amazing day We had an amazing g time visiting the Roman forum palatine hill and the colosseum. Our guide was Nina and she was brilliant. Highly recommend this company and this trip. Booking was straightforward and meeting point very organised. Nina was really knowledgable about all the history and made it so interesting and such fun. Don’t hesitate to book this trip. Read more Written September 20, 2023
• M520XDstevem 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Sara is great! Sara did a wonderful job and my kids (boys aged 9 and 11) and I all loved her tour! She knew just how to keep them interested in all there is to see. Read more Written September 8, 2023
• 874maureenc 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Colosseum Our tour through the Colosseum was very enjoyable. Our tour guide, Giada, was very knowledgeable and friendly. I would highly recommend! Read more Written September 6, 2023
• 601JohnR 0 contributions 2.0 of 5 bubbles The Roman Guy Colosseum Tour Canceled I booked this tour 4 Months ago with The Tour Guy. Today I get a text and email saying that the tour was canceled and that they rebooked me on an earlier tour without my consent. Although, I know tours are totally subject to availability and rules and regulations of the government and maybe canceled at any time. I feel a 4-month after the booking window is unacceptable to cancel. I also booked the Vatican tour through The Tour Guy and felt if this Colosseum tour is canceled that Vatican maybe as well. I decided to cancel myself to be on the safe side and go to another company to rebook. The 2 stars are for the communication that the TOUR GUY contacted me with and also the fact that they rebooked on another tour without my consent for the tour the Tour Guy cancelled. All though I did not go on any tour offered by the Tour Guy, I felt compelled to write a review of my situation. I have heard others getting "burned" and felt the public should know of this possibility. Good Luck Read more Written September 3, 2023
• Jon M 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Great tour with a great tour guide Great tour with a great tour guide. Very focused on our young children, kept their attention, very informative and fun activities. Adults learned too. Read more Written August 6, 2023
• carlie495 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Top notch tour with a wonderful guide! 100% satisfied with our experience and would highly recommend this option for any family looking to learn historical context to some of the most magnificent artworks in the Vatican city in a way that is engaging for all. Our tour guide, Tom, was a wealth of knowledge and excellent at keeping our 7 and 9 year old interested through the whole tour. We were all very pleased and impressed with our experience. Read more Written August 6, 2023
• F3918USmatthewb 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Roberta was excellent Roberta was a great tour guide. Saved us like an hour waiting in lines that you wouldn’t realize you could skip at the start of the Vatican museums. Was really knowledgeable about the artwork and history and was great with the kids. We saw everything we wanted to see and didn’t feel rushed at all. Read more Written August 3, 2023
• L9259BCchelsear 0 contributions 5.0 of 5 bubbles Fanastic tour -- highlight of our Rome visit! Many thanks to Donato who provided an informative, engaging and fun tour for the entire family! Very easy meeting points, truly skipping lengthy lines, this tour made what could have been an intense experience in the heat into a highly enjoyable visit. Donato came prepared with visual aids, games, and age-appropriate explanations for the history and art that kept our nine and seven year-olds engaged. He was incredibly knowledgable, provided thoughtful answers to questions, and was mindful of moving at a pace appropriate for the kids and my mother-in-law. I cannot rate Donato and this tour highly enough! Read more Written July 22, 2023

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Vatican Museums After-Hours VIP Tour Experience with Sistine Chapel and Skip-the-Line Tickets

• Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel
• Raphael Rooms

• Enjoy crowds-free access to the Vatican Museum collections
• The pinnacle of your Context Tour of Italy

This was the high point of our time in Rome. We were able to visit the Sistine Chapel by ourselves. Also the guide showed us part of the Vatican Gardens, which were not part of the tour. It was remarkable and overwhelming. I was in tears. – Mark, a 2018 Context Traveler

Special Notes About this Experience: 

• This tour is available by request only. Please share alternate availability when you place your order to maximize the opportunity of securing a date.
• Please note that the availability of certain galleries is subject to change due to unexpected activities or events hosted by Vatican City.
• Not all of the Vatican Museum galleries will be accessible during this after-hours visit, including the Pinacoteca and Egyptian collections. The Belvedere Courtyard is often closed after hours but will be included if possible. St. Peter’s Basilica will not be available. 
• We normally spend a significant amount of time (35-40 minutes) inside the Sistine Chapel and divide the rest of our time between the Gallery of Maps, the Tapestry Gallery, and the Raphael Rooms, including other collections as time and security permits.
• Though this is an after-hours visit, there are a small number of other groups that may be in the museums at the same time, which means we may run into other visitors while in the museum. The number of people in the museums after-hours, however, is minuscule compared to daytime crowds.
• This tour meets promptly at 5:45 PM, or 6:45 AM (depending on your booking), so that we may maximize our available time in the galleries together.   Meeting point details will be provided once your reservation has been confirmed by our team.
• To assist you in planning your trip to the Vatican, we have created an informative resources page on how to tour the Vatican .
• Visitors with disabilities may be entitled to free entry to the Vatican Museums. Please consult the Vatican Museums website for further information and please contact us to discuss if you qualify. Vatican Museums Accessibility Information .

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After Hours Access to the Vatican Museums

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Vatican Evening Tour

Tour overview.

Indulge in the truly unique atmosphere of the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel on our VIP Vatican evening tour. This intimate journey features all the must-sees you would expect in the company of an expert insider guide and a small group of only 12 guests or fewer.

Tour Highlights

• Pinecone Courtyard
• Belvedere Apollo
• Laocoön and His Sons
• Belvedere Torso
• Greek Cross Hall
• Gallery of Candelabra
• Gallery of Tapestries
• Gallery of Maps
• Raphael Rooms
• Sistine Chapel

What's included

• Skip-the-line access to Vatican Museums
• Expert English-speaking guide
• Small groups of 12 or fewer
• All tickets and reservations
• Headsets to hear the guide clearly

What you’ll See Along the Way

When entering this hall, one is immediately struck by the unmissable pair of ornate sarcophagi, which Emperor Constantine had custom-made in precious red marble for the burial of his mother and daughter. The central flooring of the room is dominated by wonderful 3rd century mosaic, exquisitely representing the four phases of the moon with the head of Medusa in the center. Other must-sees include the two Egyptian telamones (man-shaped pillars) flanking the entrance and a number of marble sculptures portraying some of history’s most famous characters, including Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.

This 262-foot long gallery is more dazzling than ever and no wonder – its ceiling frescoes recently underwent a thorough restoration process costing the very grand total of one million US dollars. Though it was quite a splurge, the refurbishment was worth every cent as the richly decorated vault is now so stunning that it almost steals the attention from the marble sculptures below. The ceiling is more than just beautiful, though. It’s also a great example of mind-bending “tromp l'œil”. The masters who created frescoes used illusionistic painting techniques, making the images appear convincingly three-dimensional.

As you enter the Gallery of Tapestries, you will be fascinated by the wall hangings from the Scuola Nuova (New School), mostly woven in Brussels, which display several important episodes from the life of Jesus, including the Last Supper and the resurrection, as well as a depiction of the assassination of Julius Caesar. Although the tapestries are stunning to behold, they originally served as more than mere decoration. In fact, in the first centuries after their installation, the carpets also functioned as added insulation to the walls, keeping the Apostolic Palace warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.

This absolute stunner of a gallery was inaugurated in the late 16th century. Pope Gregory XIII commissioned two of his favorite artists to fresco the 120-foot long walls with maps of all the regions of Italy which were under the papal power at the time. In only three years, 40 mural paintings were finalized, displaying the whole of the Apennine peninsula, complete with an exact coastal line and the most important cities of the period. The maps are decorated with historical events, monuments and particularities of the places depicted, as well as with ships, sea monsters and mythological figures.

This world-famous suite of rooms was painted by Raphael in the early 1500s by the commission of Pope Julius II. Raphael’s frescoes perfectly expressed the Renaissance’s religious and philosophical ideals and made the artist one of the most beloved and influential masters of art history. Out of all the incredible frescoes found in the papal apartment, The School of Athens remains the most celebrated. Curiously, Raphael chose to depict a number of his most esteemed contemporary colleagues in the gigantic painting – Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and even Raphael himself can be found amongst the vibrant frescoes.

In 1508 Pope Julius II summoned Michelangelo to Rome, asking him to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo, who considered himself a sculptor and not a painter, respectfully declined the commission. Unsurprisingly, the pontifex did not take the artist’s “no” for an answer (they didn’t call him the “Warrior Pope” for nothing) and thus Michelangelo was forced to spend the next 4 years of his life unwillingly frescoing the chapel’s enormous vault. But, as much as Michelangelo loathed his neckbreaking chore, the fruit of his labor was spectacular, perhaps one of the greatest pictorial decorations in all of Western art.

The Pinecone Courtyard is somewhat of an outdoor gallery, filled with curious works of art. Apart from the over-sized bronze pinecone statue that gave this patio its name, the most famous piece found here is the cutting-edge chef-d'oeuvre at its center, a generous gift to Pope John Paul II from the artist himself, Arnaldo Pomodoro, in 1990. If you think the spherical work of art looks somewhat familiar; it could be because you have seen it before. In fact, different sized versions of Arnoldo’s futuristic-looking metal ball exist in numerous cities all over the world.

This exquisite marble sculpture is one of the most famous works in Western art history. It was found just outside Rome in the late 1400s and became a papal possession shortly thereafter thanks to Pope Julius II, who brought it to the Belvedere Palace (where it still resides to this day). The statue instantly became one of the Vatican collection’s most coveted showpieces and it would take many years before anyone realized that the sculpture was merely a Roman marble copy of a long lost Greek original in bronze. The identity of the creator is still held in mystery, but most experts believe it was the Greek sculptor Leochares.

This touching 2nd century AD sculpture portrays the priest Laocoön and his two sons as they struggle to escape the grasp of enormous sea serpents which had been sent by Poseidon as a punishment for leaking the secret of the Trojan horse. The father desperately tries to save himself and his children, but his efforts are all in vain; the younger son has already suffocated in the fatal grip of the serpent, while the elder is fruitlessly begs his father for help. The sculptor has skillfully captured the immense pain and mourning of the father, who cannot save his children from death nor himself.

This world-renowned sculpture is carved in white marble and dated to Greek antiquity, around the 1st century AD. While it’s only a fragment of the original figure, this torso has had a huge influence on the history of art. Upon its arrival in the Vatican in 1523, it gained immediate popularity and Michelangelo, who had always been fascinated with classical sculptures, distinguished himself as its most avid admirer. He was known to spend hours examining the broken sculpture in detail and drew hundreds of sketches of it from every angle. For many years, the Renaissance master even referred to himself as a “pupil of the torso”.

This circular room boasts several interesting pieces, including a sculpture of Emperor Claudius portrayed as the god Jupiter, a stunning bronze rendering of Hercules, and a giant porphyry basin recovered from Emperor Nero’s private estate. But even with all of these curious masterpieces on display, the exquisite flooring remains one of the most notable parts of the entire hall. These intricate mosaics adorned an ancient bathhouse on the outskirts of Rome until Pope Pius VI brought them to the Vatican in the 1800s. Incredibly, the delicate fragments were transported here piece by piece, like a spectacular 3rd century puzzle.

Vatican Museums Behind the Scenes

When sightseeing in the Eternal City, it’s not unusual to find yourself wishing the day wouldn’t end, and luckily – it doesn’t have to! Seize this unique chance to see the Vatican’s world-famous art and architecture in the special ambiance that few visitors ever get to experience. Our Vatican Evening Tour gives you the opportunity to take advantage of exclusive evening opening hours, so you’ll avoid the massive day-time crowds, making this starlit adventure inside its enchanting halls one of the most appealing ways to experience the masterpieces. This tour allows you to walk through the Vatican galleries and halls after the hottest hours of the day to see the globally acclaimed artworks like Raphael’s School of Athens and Michelangelo's iconic Sistine Chapel with the immortal masterpieces The Creation of Adam and The Last Judgment. So, go beyond checking the Vatican off your ‘travel to’ list, and see the colourful mosaics shimmer, sculptures in realistic shadows, and romantic moonlit courtyards glow, while your guide provides a detailed narrative of these historic walls. From the Gallery of Maps to the Gallery of Tapestries, the Laocoön to the Belvedere Apollo we’ll ensure your evening tour of the Vatican is nothing less than spectacular.

Unveil “Shiver-Down-the-Spine” Inducing Sights

The brightest star on this evening tour is, without doubt, the Sistine Chapel, and entering it at a time that was once reserved for popes or the papal conclave is as inspiring as it gets. You will also see the brilliantly frescoed walls and ceiling under perfect viewing conditions with lighting that is designed to highlight every vibrant detail. Learn about all of Michelangelo’s trials and tribulations in creating one of humanity’s greatest creative achievements, as you gaze into the biblical and revelationary scenes. You will also be delighted to know that under the layers of paint lies the original star-studded ceiling, proof that the Pontiff’s private chapel was often used at night. Our guides will offer you a fascinating glimpse into the rivalry and drama that unfolded between the creators of the Vatican’s most esteemed jewels. But aside from learning about the artists’ lives, you’ll also get insightful explanations on the processes behind the works themselves. We’ll witness and examine some of the most forward-thinking art techniques of the times, such as the speed at which frescos had to be painted, the innovative use of shadows in “chiaroscuro”, and the hidden messages and personalities that abound where you least expect it.

What our Customers say...

Amazing Tour!!!

What an interesting tour! So glad we decided to book a tour instead of doing it ourselves. Our guide was very knowledgeable, passionate about the tour and managed to keep us all together. Would definitely recommend this tour company as well as Mateo our tour guide.”

The Sistine Chapel Brought to Life!

Phenomenal tour! We had been pushed like cattle through the Sistine Chapel with another tour the day before, but this special night was the complete opposite experience. Our guide Mateo was incredibly knowledgeable and passionate - he truly brought the Vatican and the Chapel to life for us in a much more personal and relaxed way!”

Matteo was awesome! He was very passionate, very knowledgeable he made sure our visit to the museum and the Sistine Chapel was incredible. You’re lucky to have such a valuable employee, he represents your company very well!”

Great quality tour!

I had a fantastic time visiting the Vatican museums for the first time. Our tour guide Mateo was incredibly passionate about the history of the museums and everything inside. I would highly recommend this tour, it’s clear they love their job!”

Favourite Tour

The timing is perfect! The experience perfect! The smaller group makes a big diff, Everything perfect! We had Giuliano and he was very knowledgeable and kind. Loved this tour.”

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Venice food tours, st. mark’s basilica, murano & burano, gondola tours, doge’s palace, st. peter’s basilica, st. peter's dome, sistine chapel, raphael rooms, private tours, pompeii from rome, cooking classes, colosseum underground, paris food tours, eiffel tower, statue of liberty, nyc food tours, metropolitan museum (met), central park, last supper, lake como from milan, windsor castle, westminster abbey, tower of london, harry potter, changing of the guard, vegas shows, the grand canyon, uffizi gallery, tuscan wine tours, statue of david, florence food tours, florence duomo, accademia gallery, sagrada familia, montserrat from barcelona, casa batllo, barcelona food tours, barcelona boat tours, athens food tours, rijksmuseum tours, amsterdam food tours, amalfi coast, water & boat tours, sorrento boat tours, capri boat tours, the best sistine chapel tours, book sistine chapel tours and skip the lines and witness michelangelo's genius up close.

Many visitors choose to book our Rome in a Day tour which combines your Vatican & Sistine Chapel tour with a Colosseum & Ancient Rome tour. It is a long day but it's popularity and great reviews mean it is an excellent value for many customers. We offer all types of individual Vatican tours and tickets but the most popular one is our Privileged Entrance Vatican Tour with Sistine Chapel which enters prior to general admission at 8 am & 8:30 am. This allows your visit to start early which results in fewer crowds throughout the journey and a more memorable experience. Our Sistine Chapel tour which includes climbing the dome of Sant Peter's Basilica is a great option. It is a guided climb to the top of Saint Peter's dome which was designed by Michelangelo himself. From there, you go the Vatican museums for a tour including the Sistine Chapel. All of our tours wait in security lines but we have a priority entrance and do not wait in line for tickets so it is much faster. For a more intimate way to see the wonders of the Vatican City, join an engaging local guide for a private tour that’ll show you the finest art and most iconic sites at a pace that suits you, and with fewer crowds.

The Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo is one of the world's most iconic works of art, so it is on top of everyone's bucket list. The visitor count inside the Vatican Museum has become so high that booking ahead has become a crucial part of your visit. Choose between our small group and private skip the line tours and enjoy added perks like entering outside of official hours or the VIP experience of having your own private guide. Many visitors choose to book our Rome in a Day tour which combines your Vatican & Sistine Chapel tour with a Colosseum & Ancient Rome tour. It is a long day but it's popularity and great reviews mean it is an excellent value for many customers. We offer all types of individual Vatican tours and tickets but the most popular one is our Privileged Entrance Vatican Tour with Sistine Chapel which enters prior to general admission at 8 am & 8:30 am. This allows your visit to start early which results in fewer crowds throughout the journey and a more memorable experience. Our Sistine Chapel tour which includes climbing the dome of Sant Peter's Basilica is a great option. It is a guided climb to the top of Saint Peter's dome which was designed by Michelangelo himself. From there, you go the Vatican museums for a tour including the Sistine Chapel. All of our tours wait in security lines but we have a priority entrance and do not wait in line for tickets so it is much faster. For a more intimate way to see the wonders of the Vatican City, join an engaging local guide for a private tour that’ll show you the finest art and most iconic sites at a pace that suits you, and with fewer crowds.

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Rome in a Day Tour with Colosseum and Vatican Museums

Explore the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, Roman Forum, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and more!

( 1483 ) as low as $156.56

Privileged Entrance Vatican Tour with Sistine Chapel

Skip the line and gain direct access to the Raphael Rooms, Creation of Man, and St. Peter's Basilica

( 1286 ) From: $94.59

Vatican at Closing Time with Sistine Chapel

Book a unique experience that visits the Vatican in the early evening with fewer crowds

( 169 ) From: $109.76

Semi-Private Vatican Tour with Sistine Chapel

Enjoy a premium and exclusive tour of the Raphael Rooms, St.Peter's Basilica, and more!

( 1111 ) From: $133.79

St. Peter's Dome Climb and Sistine Chapel Combo Tour

Save money while seeing Rome from above, the Papal Crypts below, and the Vatican museums nearby

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Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel Tickets

Skip the line and gain quicker access to the Vatican so you can explore at your leisure

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Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica Private Tour

See the wonders of the Vatican on a tailored private tour with expert guide and skip-the-line entry

( 136 ) From: $441.28

Private Rome in a Day Tour with Colosseum & Vatican Museums

See the best of Rome your way with a private guide at the Sistine Chapel, Trevi Fountain, and more!

( 54 ) From: $1,117.76

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Vatican Tours

Vatican City offers countless artistic and architectural treasures, and you’ll be able to make the m...

Our tours in Vatican

Pristine Sistine at Closing Time: Late Entry Vatican Tour

The Complete Vatican Tour with Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel & St. Peter’s Basilica

Pristine Sistine™ Early Entrance Small Group Vatican Tour

Rome in a Day Tour: Including Vatican, Colosseum & Historic Center

St. Peter’s Basilica from Top to Bottom with Dome Climb & Crypt

VIP Vatican Key Master’s Tour: Unlock the Sistine Chapel

Alone In The Vatican: Exclusive VIP Access Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel Tour

What to know about vatican from our local guides.

The Vatican Museums house 70,000 of the world’s greatest artistic treasures, of which 20,000 are on display. From ancient Roman sculptures to Renaissance paintings, it would take days to discover it all, which is why we highly recommend booking a Vatican tour to help you make the most of your time at the museums.

A few of the collection’s undisputed highlights are:

• The Sistine Chapel, adorned with Michelangelo’s legendary frescoes
• The Raphael Rooms, which include the famous School of Athens
• The Gallery of the Maps, perhaps the most famous of the Museums’ galleries adorned with 40 maps depicting the different regions of Italy
• Laocoön and His Sons, an enigmatic masterpiece of ancient sculpture
• The Belvedere Torso, which is said to have influenced the work of Michelangelo himself

The Sistine Chapel is perhaps the most famous individual room in the entire world. This is in no small part due to the significant artistic masterpieces adorning its interior, with Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgment” and ceiling frescoes being the highlights.

Pope Sixtus IV, the chapel’s namesake, commissioned its construction in the late 15th century. Today, its best-known use is for the papal conclaves, the process through which a new pope is elected by the College of Cardinals. It also serves as the Pope’s own private chapel when he is at the Vatican.

Want to have the Sistine Chapel all to yourself, just like the Pope? Avoid the crowds on a VIP tour outside opening hours. For a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience, you can even accompany the Vatican Key Master himself as he opens the silent halls and galleries in the Vatican Museums early in the morning—including the Sistine Chapel.

As the largest church in the world, St. Peter’s Basilica is itself a masterpiece of art and architecture. It houses some of the most significant religious art in the world, including Michelangelo’s moving Pietà sculpture and the Baldachin, Bernini’s massive bronze altar canopy.

Michelangelo was also the mastermind behind the famous dome crowning the basilica. Climbing the dome is a fantastic way to see not just the incredible mosaics lining the interior up close, but also to feast your eyes on spectacular views over Rome from the very top. Keep in mind that there are over 500 steps to get to the top of the dome from ground level, though an elevator is available to bypass approximately the first half. Underneath the Basilica, the Papal Crypts mark the final resting place of some of the most important Popes in Catholic history.

A guided tour of St. Peter’s Basilica will give you an up-close look at all of these treasures and more. Led by an expert art historian guide, you’ll see a side of the world’s most iconic church that few others get to experience.

The best and easiest way to ensure you skip the line at the Vatican is to book a guided tour . With no-wait access to the Vatican Museums and St. Peter’s Basilica, you’ll save precious hours of time that would have been spent in line. Plus, you'll be in the company of an insightful guide who can provide context on the innumerable masterpieces that can be hard to make sense of on your own.

The Vatican Museums are open Monday to Saturday from 9 am–6 pm. They tend to get more crowded the later in the day you go, so consider booking an early morning Vatican tour to get ahead of the crowds and ensure a more relaxed visit.

For an especially exclusive experience, consider joining the Vatican Key Master himself as he unlocks the silent halls, galleries, and even the Sistine Chapel first thing in the morning before the Museums open to the public. Accompanied by a small group of just 20 other people, the Key Master’s Tour is the most special way to experience the Vatican in total peace and quiet.

Don’t want to get up early? Another excellent option is to take a special access tour after closing time to wander the halls of the Vatican in peace—and have the Sistine Chapel all to yourself.

From May through October, the Vatican Museums offer extended opening hours until 10:30 pm on Fridays and 8 pm on Saturdays. Taking a night tour of the Vatican is a once-in-a-lifetime experience you won’t soon forget!

The Museums are closed most Sundays (except for the last Sunday of every month) and on certain public holidays.

The Vatican is a religious site, and official rules mandate that visitors dress appropriately or risk being turned away. All guests regardless of gender are required to keep their shoulders and knees covered. In warmer months, it’s useful to have a shawl, scarf, or light jacket handy to pull on when entering the Vatican if your outfit doesn’t meet the dress code standards. Additionally, hats are not allowed.

While the Vatican dress code doesn’t have any hard-and-fast rules regarding footwear, keep in mind that you’ll be doing a lot of walking on your Vatican tour. As long as you have comfortable shoes that are good for walking, you’re all set.

While there aren’t any restaurants within Vatican City itself, the surrounding Prati and Trionfale neighborhoods offer plenty of excellent options—particularly if you don’t mind walking a few blocks away (or further) from the Vatican walls. For a quick, on-the-go option, Anthony Bourdain-approved Bonci Pizzarium serves up some of the best pizza by the slice in Rome. In the mood for a sit-down meal after spending hours on your feet at the Vatican? Velavevodetto ai Quiriti—the Prati outpost of Testaccio icon Flavio al Velavevodetto—is perfect for home-cooked Roman classics.

Check out our popular Vatican articles

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My Night in the Sistine Chapel

After the tourists go home, a museum’s collection tells its own story.

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic , Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.

A t the Vatican Museums , the nightly ritual of the keys begins in Room 49A, a tight, windowless chamber, generally referred to as il bunker , which I entered one evening last November from a grassy courtyard as rain began to fall. The keeper of the keys—the clavigero —is a former member of the carabinieri named Gianni Crea. He has a staff of about a dozen, and keeps nearly 3,000 keys in the bunker. Can he match each one to a lock? At the Vatican, yes, he said; he has trouble at home. Some keys, like No. 401, which weighs a pound and opens the main interior door to the oldest of the museum buildings, were forged centuries ago; others resemble keys you’d find in a hardware store or a kitchen drawer. Many have plastic tags with handwritten labels. They open every utility box, every window, every gate and portal.

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The heavy bronze doors at the museums’ main entrance are pulled shut every afternoon at 4 p.m. and locked with a key numbered 2,000. Over the next two hours, until the exit doors are also closed, the last visitors proceed through the hallways. Behind them, here and there, lights begin to dim. Metal detectors power down. At the glassed-in security station in the Atrium of the Four Gates, departing guards punch time cards. Behind the glass, alongside a crucifix and a photograph of Pope Francis, a flatscreen presents live images from security cameras. The screen gives the enclosure a quiet glow.

Each sector of the museum has its own large key ring, the kind carried by a jailer. On this night, when the last of the visitors had gone, Crea piled a tangle of keys on the counter of the security station, then handed out key rings to his staff. The lockdown got under way. He kept a larger set of keys for himself, so that he and I could make our way anywhere.

Before leaving the bunker, Crea had taken a key from an envelope. The flap, now torn, bore his signature and had been stamped with the papal coat of arms. He had picked up the key that morning from a command post at the Porta Sant’Anna, one of the Vatican gateways, and would return it shortly before midnight. He handed the key to me, gesturing to a tiny, unmarked vault in the wall of the bunker. I opened the vault and found another key. If Lewis Carroll had invented a nuclear-launch protocol for the Holy See, this might have been it. The key in the vault was the key to the Sistine Chapel.

I HAD COME OFTEN to the Vatican Museums ever since a first visit when I was in grade school. Over the years I had written about some of the museums’ activities, and on several occasions had met with the director, the art historian Barbara Jatta. But I had long wanted to experience the museums in a different way: to wander the four and a half miles of hallways after the doors close and to be there in the early hours before the doors open; to explore the collection—the 20,000 sculptures and paintings and other works on display—as night settles over Rome and the galleries adjust to a quieter state of being. A few months ago, I got my wish: The Vatican Museums agreed to let me spend most of a night inside and to go wherever I wanted. I would always be in the company of the clavigero and of another member of the staff, by turns Matteo Alessandrini, the head of the press office, and a colleague, Megan Eckley, both of whom I knew well. Not unusually, Matteo represents a second generation with a Vatican calling. His father, Costanzo, had served Pope John Paul II as a personal bodyguard.

The Vatican Museums— there are many separate units —occupy what is essentially a rectangle. To the north, the Belvedere Palace, which began life as a 15th-century papal villa, lies hard against Vatican City’s massive walls. To the south, near St. Peter’s Basilica, a quarter of a mile away, is the Sistine Chapel. Two long loggias link north to south and form the rectangle’s sides. The space these buildings enclose is divided into courtyards.

We decided to start the evening where the museums themselves had started, in the Belvedere Palace. The creators of what are now the Vatican Museums, half a millennium ago, were driven by a radical change in perspective. For centuries, the bountiful supply of ancient statuary unearthed in Rome had been burned for lime to make mortar. With the revival of classical learning, Renaissance popes began to preserve the marble instead, putting the best pieces on display in the Belvedere’s Octagonal Courtyard. The collection grew and the mission broadened. In time, visionaries such as Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Antonio Canova created something like a modern museum. It remains modern in its scholarship and expertise, and in many of its operations.

But it is also the world’s oldest major museum, and, as Jatta emphasizes, a spiritual dimension is part of its mission. Some precincts are consecrated space. The gift shops sell more rosaries than anything else. The original buildings were meant for the personal use of the pope, and in places encompass a confusing warren of small rooms and narrow staircases that were never intended to receive 7 million visitors a year. The scale of the Vatican Museums can be hard to comprehend—20 acres of wall space—and the task of renewal and conservation is perpetual. Masonry subsides and cracks. Frescoes fade. Roofs leak. Only four spaces have air-conditioning. The museum complex is not a static object. It is an organism, and life flows through it.

Read: An American art critic’s 70-year love affair with Rome

Earlier in the day, I had stopped in to see Marco Maggi, the head of the conservator’s office. His job comes with a pedigree—the first person to hold it was appointed in 1543. The office oversees the various restoration laboratories but its primary responsibility is to keep materials from deteriorating in the first place—statues and paintings, to be sure, but also mummy linens, Roman glass, medieval parchment, Renaissance tapestries, and items made of bronze or bone, feathers or sealskin. Reflecting on the biography of every object—the unique journey each has made to this place across miles and years— Maggi repeated an observation he’d once heard, and that stayed with me all night. “Time,” he said, “is an emotion.”

THE IDEA THAT A MUSEUM comes alive at night—that works of art themselves might relax and chat when people are not there— animates movies and novels and children’s books . And there is a sort of truth to the idea: After hours, life goes on. As we set out among the galleries, faint noises from the ceiling called attention to a skylight. Workers above could be heard talking as they washed the exterior, their movements backlit like those of puppets in a shadow play. Elsewhere, cleaners with soft brushes in their hands and vacuum cleaners strapped to their backs gently dusted imperial Roman statues—an animal’s claws, an athlete’s thighs, an emperor’s beard. In a conservation laboratory set among exhibits, technicians in white coats worked late, repairing the frayed edge of a woven artifact from Africa.

The museums at night can feel like an elaborate play structure: gilded corridors the length of a football field, rooms teeming with a stone zoo of lions and crocodiles and other marble creatures, darkened galleries and countless places to hide. Every door conceals a surprise. In the Belvedere Palace, the clavigero unlocked a gate that gave access to a tower encasing the Bramante staircase, a spiral ramp named for the chief architect of Pope Julius II. It is a double helix—people can ascend and descend without crossing paths—and large enough to accommodate a papal carriage, as it once had to do. The staircase links the lofty interior of the palace to an exterior private entrance far below. We stepped outside, at ground level, into a downpour. A fountain in the shape of a galleon sprayed jets of water from masts and cannons, as if trying to fight off the weather. Back upstairs, the Octagonal Courtyard was dimly lit and open to the sky. Rain glazed a ring of sarcophagi and pelted a central pool. Some of the Vatican’s original treasures are still here. One alcove frames the ancient statue known as Laocoön . I moved a velvet rope aside and walked behind the statue, and was surprised to find an object affixed to the base: a lone marble arm.

Laocoön was the man who tried to warn his fellow Trojans about that gift of a wooden horse. Angry, one of the gods sent serpents to strangle Laocoön and his sons—the moment captured in marble. The sculpture, from the first century B.C., had been unearthed in a vineyard near the Colosseum in 1506—Michelangelo was present for the excavation—and became the nucleus of the Vatican collection. But bits were missing, including the father’s right arm. Could the arm be restored?

Restoration was once standard practice; along with fig leaves, classical statues gained hands, noses, and entire limbs made from plaster or marble. As recently as a few decades ago, souvenir-seekers might snap off a plaster finger, leaving a trace of white dust on the floor.

To restore Laocoön , the pope’s architect held a competition , appointing Raphael as judge. Eventually an arm was added, slightly bent but reaching upward—the version preserved in countless copies. Michelangelo was skeptical; an experienced anatomist, he inferred that Laocoön’s arm must have been angled sharply behind his head . Four hundred years later, a big piece of the missing limb was discovered. Michelangelo had been right. The original arm was reattached. The discarded arm was left behind the statue, where on a rainy night the beam of a flashlight picked it out.

A museum loses something when visitors are gone: People are part of the display. But it gains something in return. In the emptiness of night, you become acutely aware of your physical senses. Eyes adjust to changing gradations of light. Black windows become mirrors. Shadows dance at light’s command: Projected on a wall, marble stallions pulling a Roman chariot seem to rear in anger; an unfinished angel by Bernini in clay and wire becomes even larger and hovers protectively over a Caravaggio. Faint smells come into their own. A whiff of paint lingers in a room that has been newly restored. A scent of candle wax pervades a papal chapel. The acoustic environment is unexpected. Every sound creates an echo—voices, footsteps, keys, raindrops. The high-low wail of a siren from the city outside seems impossibly remote. There is an urge to touch, to run a hand across surfaces like the underside of a Raphael tapestry, whose filaments of golden thread give the appearance of a circuit board.

Without the bustle, I was aware of another sense too, a kind of sixth sense: a consciousness of actual lives bound up with whatever I was looking at. In the Pinacoteca, the picture gallery, we passed Leonardo da Vinci’s Saint Jerome ; Leonardo’s fingerprint was clearly visible in a patch of blue-green sky. A few rooms away, lit up and richly colored in an otherwise darkened space, Raphael’s The Transfiguration might have been a stained-glass window. It was easy to see why this place had been chosen for a memorial Mass, a few weeks earlier, recognizing staff members who had died or suffered loss in the previous year. On the same floor, in the older rooms of the Belvedere Palace, the presence of Michelangelo was inescapable: A visitor sees what he would have seen. Michelangelo came to this place to study the Belvedere Torso , a marble dating to the first century B.C. He thought of the torso—its arms missing, its legs cut off at the knees—as his “teacher” and used the taut anatomy in his portrayal of Adam on the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. In an adjacent room stands a basin, carved from a single slab of imperial porphyry , that may once have graced Emperor Nero’s Golden House. It is said that Nero and his wife used to bathe in it, a detail I pass along understanding that It is said , a staple phrase in Rome, generally means “Don’t look too closely.” But ordinary people are also reflected in the basin’s history. The porphyry, weighing half a ton, had been quarried in Egypt. Hundreds of lives were invested in hauling and floating it to Rome. It would not have been an easy task.

There was not a living soul in the gleaming straightaway of the Chiaramonti loggia, which extends south from the Belvedere Palace, and yet it was full of life. Marble heads of ancient Romans are arranged side by side on tiers of shelves that stretch for 100 yards. Some are idealized renderings of gods and emperors. Some are busts of people one might actually have known. They capture receding hairlines, double chins, unfortunate fads in coiffure; they capture pride, love, vanity, sadness. The names of many of these men and women have been lost. In some cases, all that is certain is a place of origin and a date, along the lines of Syria, 1st Century B.C. or Dacia, 3rd Century A.D. But the individuality of the features, the imprint of personality, is too strong to ignore. I could imagine these people suddenly alive, marble becoming flesh, eyes blinking in surprise. Their expressive faces send a message that recalls an inscription in Rome’s Capuchin ossuary: What You Are Now, We Once Were .

Among the 1,000 pieces of sculpture in the loggia, two busts were gone, their absence as obvious as missing teeth; all that remained were ragged circles marking where the bases had been fixed to a shelf. A few weeks earlier, an American tourist had told a guard that he needed to see the pope. Informed that a meeting was not possible, he had knocked the two busts to the floor . One of them— Veiled Head of an Old Man —lost part of his nose and an ear. The bust is being repaired, but this old Roman, whoever he was, will forever bear the marks of an encounter in 2022.

From the May 1996 issue: Backlogs of history

The Vatican Museums employ undercover personnel known as volanti , who walk among the crowds. But incidents still occur. In August, climate protesters from an organization called Last Generation glued their hands to the base of Laocoön . (A few weeks earlier, the same group had splashed pea soup on Van Gogh’s The Sower , also in Rome.) The Vatican has a court system but few jail cells. The Laocoön perpetrators were remanded to Italy, a few yards away.

The American tourist who knocked over the busts likewise found himself in Italian custody. Word of the incident spread quickly. When Barbara Jatta saw Pope Francis at an event not long afterward, his first words to the museums’ director were “Who was that poor man?”

We left ancient Rome behind and headed for the newest part of the museums— the Anima Mundi gallery , devoted to works from beyond the Western world. The route to the gallery led past a terrace that looked out across the Vatican gardens to the dome of St. Peter’s and the misty silhouettes of umbrella pines. The dome was lit gently, except for the blazing lantern atop its crown. Antonio Paolucci, a former director of the museums, used to say that the best time to view the dome at night would have been centuries ago, when only the moon gave illumination. Electric lighting, he felt, made the lantern look like a birthday cake. Tonight, in the wet air, it wore a halo.

I was not prepared for the beauty of the Anima Mundi gallery—a sleek, modern space the size of a small warehouse. The gallery was dark but the collection was revealed in illuminated vitrines that arose like glass meeting rooms in an open-plan office. Many of the objects had been gifts to popes. Father Nicola Mapelli, the director of the gallery, walked among objects he especially loves: funerary poles and wandjina rock art from Australia; a ritual mask from Tierra del Fuego; a red-eyed, black-skinned Madonna and Child from New Guinea.

Museum officials sometimes speak of Anima Mundi as “the next Sistine Chapel,” and a big part of the museums’ future. Most of the Church’s growth is outside Europe and North America. Of course, the existing Sistine Chapel remains a big part of the future too. We made our way toward the chapel and the Raphael Rooms, at the far end of the rectangle. Pausing by a window, Matteo Alessandrini pointed to the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, on the Vatican grounds. The time was about 10 o’clock, and a single room was lit—the salone of the pope emeritus, Benedict XVI. He had only a month to live.

A few moments later, Matteo indicated a small handle in a frescoed wall and pulled out a thin rectangle of masonry. Behind it was a pane of glass, embedded in the wall centuries ago as an early-warning system: Cracked glass would mean the building had begun to subside. I reached in with a finger. We were okay for now.

In the Raphael Rooms —four chambers that Raphael covered with frescoes in what were once a suite of papal apartments—heavy wooden shutters had been closed against the night, but an open window was still reflected in the polished shield of a figure on an opposite wall: a trompe l’oeil joke by the artist. Gouges in the walls are still visible, the work of soldiers with pikes during the Sack of Rome in 1527. Raphael had been painting the last of these four rooms, the Room of Constantine, when a fever carried him off. Graffiti, centuries old, has been scratched into its lower walls: fu fatto papa pio iv , someone wrote, noting the election of a new pontiff. That was in 1559.

From the Raphael Rooms, the Sistine Chapel was only a few staircases away. Its most striking aspect, when you enter alone and in weak light, is not the frescoed ceiling but the sheer expanse of floor. During the day, when the room is packed with people, all looking up, the floor disappears. Once, years ago, lifted toward the chapel’s ceiling in the basket of a cherry picker , I had the chance of a bird’s-eye view. But I naturally looked up, and not at the five-story drop.

Now, late in the evening, after Gianni Crea turned the key and pulled the knob, an expanding trapezoid of light from the hallway behind us illuminated the intricate marble inlay ahead.

An axis of braided circles ran down the length to the altar, the effect dynamic and yet placid. This is the tessellated floor that Michelangelo would have known—the one that received any droppings of paint that missed the scaffolding or his face. It’s the floor Raphael would have walked on when (it is said) he took advantage of Michelangelo’s absence from Rome to sneak a look at the work in progress. The chapel would not be cleaned until morning, but as lights came on I saw little in the way of litter—unusual in a room that as many as 25,000 people walk through every day. The explanation may simply be the power of this place, its sacral nature. People do leave prayers. I found a folded slip of paper on the masonry bench that runs along the walls, saw what it was, and put it back.

From the June 1999 issue: The mirror of Dorian Gray

Free of distraction, you have a chance to notice details—for instance, the spots high on the walls where Michelangelo was unable to paint, because his scaffolding got in the way. Or how the plane of The Last Judgment leans forward, as if to convey active urgency; the slant is obvious at the join, where the front wall meets the sidewalls. Digital sensors, visible once you look for them, collect data from all parts of the chapel. They monitor temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, and particulates, as well as the size of the crowd. The data are tracked on screens in the conservator’s office; we likely produced a blip just by opening the door and turning on a light. The Sistine Chapel is one of those few air-conditioned spaces in the Vatican Museums. The air in the room can be exchanged as often as 60 times a day. If need be, the volume of traffic can be reduced by controllers upstream. They can close doors and loop throngs into a detour, or encourage exploration. People should know about Etruscan art anyway. But the chapel never fully shakes off its millions of annual visitors—their dust, their heat, their coughs and sneezes.

Those visitors arrive through a single entrance and leave through a single exit. But there are additional doors—another thing you notice when the room stands empty. The Sistine Chapel is part of the Apostolic Palace, the official papal residence, and some doors, usually locked, lead directly into private areas. Late in the evening, an elderly priest came through the double doors in the wall farthest from the altar, perhaps drawn by light seeping underneath them at an odd hour. We were invited into the Sala Regia, an ornate hall in the Apostolic Palace where popes once received royalty, and then into the Pauline Chapel, where cardinals celebrate Mass before a papal conclave begins. It is also a private chapel for the pope. There was to be a funeral here the next morning for a dignitary identified only as un diplomatico . Michelangelo’s last paintings dominate the sidewalls of the chapel— The Conversion of Saul and The Crucifixion of Saint Peter . Peter is shown being crucified upside down, as tradition says he was. But the head is torqued, lifting off the cross so that Peter can see into the room. His dark eyes followed me all the way down the center aisle, and all the way back.

Later, another door opened, near the Sistine Chapel’s altar, and a man stood silhouetted in a bright rectangle: He was standing at the entrance to the Room of Tears. Immediately upon election, a new pope takes refuge here in order to reflect on the weight thrust upon him, and to change into a white cassock. The man in the doorway, its custodian, allowed us in.

It is a suite, not a single room. The vestibule holds a red plush Victorian love seat. White cassocks in various sizes hang on a rack in the room beyond; one of them should fit any newly elected pontiff well enough. A final room contains a small wooden desk bearing a nameplate from the most recent conclave: Bergoglio , the surname of Pope Francis. On a shelf nearby sit boxes labeled bianca and nera —chemical additives used to produce white or black smoke during a conclave, after each vote. In the vestibule, the custodian pointed to an alcove sheltering a waist-high antique cabinet. Did we know what it was? With a flourish, he opened the cabinet to reveal a commode, the oval seat upholstered in rich red leather.

The Vatican Museums go dark for everyone before midnight. It was 11 p.m., and time to leave. The lights in the Sistine Chapel were extinguished, and the door swung shut. A quarter of a mile later, Crea returned the chapel’s key to its vault. Alarms were set. Outside, Crea locked the museums’ back entrance and put the key to the vault (in a freshly sealed envelope, signed and stamped) and the key to the back door into a zippered pouch. This he deposited at a command post on his way out of the city-state. Until about 5 a.m., no one would be inside.

I would see the Sistine Chapel once more. Two hours before dawn, as the rain tapered off, the gates of the Porta Sant’Anna swung open for Crea’s BMW. One of the Swiss guards at the gate saluted and then bent to the window. The guardsmen wore not the ceremonial uniform of red, blue, and yellow but the deep-blue service uniform, still with a Renaissance flair—breeches, knee socks, tunic, beret. Instead of swords, the guards carried sidearms. They were young and fit, and looked capable of a kinetic response to Stalin’s mocking question “How many divisions has the pope?” The car was waved through.

We stopped at the command post to pick up the pouch, then drove farther into Vatican City. The car crossed a courtyard, passed under a building, made some sharp turns, and came out amid the Vatican gardens alongside a road that leads to the back entrance of the museums. This is the route typically taken by guests of the Holy See’s secretary of state and by certain other visitors. French President Emmanuel Macron had recently come this way. A year earlier, Kim Kardashian, arriving with Kate Moss, had created a stir , wearing what appeared to be a spray-on white doily; she had to put on a long coat before being allowed to enter the Sistine Chapel. Members of the staff still spoke about that visit. (Moss, they said, had been lovely.)

When other guards arrived, Crea unlocked the entrance. Inside, switches were flicked. The security station glowed once more. Tutto okay? one of the men said into a phone—a routine call to the central office of the governatorato , the Vatican’s city hall, which manages the alarm system. Yes, everything was okay. Crea began handing out rings of keys. He himself took No. 401 and proceeded to the double doors that give entry to the Belvedere Palace. Using both arms, he pulled them open.

We meandered along the Gallery of the Tapestries. The hall was dark, but a flashlight framed the risen Christ in a bright circle. We arrived once more at the Sistine Chapel. The door to the Sala Regia opened briefly, revealing a flash of color: Swiss guards stood smartly in ceremonial uniforms, helmets catching the light—an honor guard for the diplomat’s funeral. The counterpoint in the chapel was a red-haired woman in a white smock, armed with a bucket, a broom, and a mop.

She worked with propulsive energy, first wiping down the altar and then sweeping 6,000 square feet of marble floor. I introduced myself; her name was Barbara and her grip was strong. She said she cleaned not only the chapel but also the stairs leading to and from it, and the toilets nearby and some of the laboratories. The chapel took her an hour; some of her supplies were kept behind the altar. She liked starting every day like this, and explained why with an arc of her arm that took in the ceiling. The contents of her dustpan confirmed the scarcity of litter: six small museum tickets, a handful of tissues, a couple of candy wrappers, a scrunchie. When her sweeping was done, Barbara opened a wooden cabinet against a wall and wheeled out a machine resembling a small Zamboni. Pushing it by hand, she polished the entire floor. The triumphant figure of Christ in The Last Judgment seemed protective, watching over Barbara as she worked. I knew that the figure’s torso had been based on that of Laocoön , but saw now that the right arm was angled over his head, as Michelangelo knew it should be, not raised above. He had made his point.

The museums’ doors would soon be opening. The hallways had begun to awaken. Guards passed by in twos and threes. Salespeople unloaded boxes from carts: fresh supplies of guidebooks and rosaries, key chains and plush toys. An aroma of espresso trailed from a break room. Near the gates, metal detectors blinked on. Outside, below the Vatican’s high walls, the colored flags of tour guides poked above the crowd.

We sought higher ground, climbing to a terrace that overlooks the Cortile della Pigna, the Pinecone Courtyard. The view, Barbara Jatta told me, had made this terrace a favorite spot: It offers a panorama of the Vatican and all of Rome. The storm had passed. A thin haze lay over the city, pierced by domes and towers. The sun, low above the Alban Hills, was on the verge of breaking through.

I was conscious of the way the various cogs of a museum’s life turn at different rates. The slow, unending process of accretion over centuries. The biography, sometimes tortuous, of every object. The cyclical flood of visitors. The start-and-stop progress through a gallery. And the sudden spark of provocation, when something you see triggers a thought or a memory—a long-ago visit here with a parent, a moment of love or friendship, an inexplicable vibration of the spirit. In that instant, a museum exists for the visitor alone. I had been carrying around Marco Maggi’s words like a riddle—“Time is an emotion”—even as the meaning fell into place.

This article appears in the June 2023 print edition with the headline “Night at the Vatican.”

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What to do with a few hours in moscow march 25, 2013 12:43 pm   subscribe.

Claudia Looi

Touring the Top 10 Moscow Metro Stations

By Claudia Looi 2 Comments

Komsomolskaya metro station looks like a museum. It has vaulted ceilings and baroque decor.

Hidden underground, in the heart of Moscow, are historical and architectural treasures of Russia. These are Soviet-era creations – the metro stations of Moscow.

Our guide Maria introduced these elaborate metro stations as “the palaces for the people.” Built between 1937 and 1955, each station holds its own history and stories. Stalin had the idea of building beautiful underground spaces that the masses could enjoy. They would look like museums, art centers, concert halls, palaces and churches. Each would have a different theme. None would be alike.

The two-hour private tour was with a former Intourist tour guide named Maria. Maria lived in Moscow all her life and through the communist era of 60s to 90s. She has been a tour guide for more than 30 years. Being in her 60s, she moved rather quickly for her age. We traveled and crammed with Maria and other Muscovites on the metro to visit 10 different metro stations.

Arrow showing the direction of metro line 1 and 2

Moscow subways are very clean

To Maria, every street, metro and building told a story. I couldn’t keep up with her stories. I don’t remember most of what she said because I was just thrilled being in Moscow.   Added to that, she spilled out so many Russian words and names, which to one who can’t read Cyrillic, sounded so foreign and could be easily forgotten.

The metro tour was the first part of our all day tour of Moscow with Maria. Here are the stations we visited:

1. Komsomolskaya Metro Station  is the most beautiful of them all. Painted yellow and decorated with chandeliers, gold leaves and semi precious stones, the station looks like a stately museum. And possibly decorated like a palace. I saw Komsomolskaya first, before the rest of the stations upon arrival in Moscow by train from St. Petersburg.

2. Revolution Square Metro Station (Ploshchad Revolyutsii) has marble arches and 72 bronze sculptures designed by Alexey Dushkin. The marble arches are flanked by the bronze sculptures. If you look closely you will see passersby touching the bronze dog's nose. Legend has it that good luck comes to those who touch the dog's nose.

Touch the dog's nose for good luck. At the Revolution Square station

Revolution Square Metro Station

3. Arbatskaya Metro Station served as a shelter during the Soviet-era. It is one of the largest and the deepest metro stations in Moscow.

Arbatskaya Metro Station

4. Biblioteka Imeni Lenina Metro Station was built in 1935 and named after the Russian State Library. It is located near the library and has a big mosaic portrait of Lenin and yellow ceramic tiles on the track walls.

Lenin's portrait at the Biblioteka Imeni Lenina Metro Station

5. Kievskaya Metro Station was one of the first to be completed in Moscow. Named after the capital city of Ukraine by Kiev-born, Nikita Khruschev, Stalin's successor.

Kievskaya Metro Station

6. Novoslobodskaya Metro Station  was built in 1952. It has 32 stained glass murals with brass borders.

Novoslobodskaya metro station

7. Kurskaya Metro Station was one of the first few to be built in Moscow in 1938. It has ceiling panels and artwork showing Soviet leadership, Soviet lifestyle and political power. It has a dome with patriotic slogans decorated with red stars representing the Soviet's World War II Hall of Fame. Kurskaya Metro Station is a must-visit station in Moscow.

Ceiling panel and artworks at Kurskaya Metro Station

8. Mayakovskaya Metro Station built in 1938. It was named after Russian poet Vladmir Mayakovsky. This is one of the most beautiful metro stations in the world with 34 mosaics painted by Alexander Deyneka.

Mayakovskaya station

One of the over 30 ceiling mosaics in Mayakovskaya metro station

9. Belorusskaya Metro Station is named after the people of Belarus. In the picture below, there are statues of 3 members of the Partisan Resistance in Belarus during World War II. The statues were sculpted by Sergei Orlov, S. Rabinovich and I. Slonim.

10. Teatralnaya Metro Station (Theatre Metro Station) is located near the Bolshoi Theatre.

Teatralnaya Metro Station decorated with porcelain figures .

Taking the metro's escalator at the end of the tour with Maria the tour guide.

Have you visited the Moscow Metro? Leave your comment below.

January 15, 2017 at 8:17 am

An excellent read! Thanks for much for sharing the Russian metro system with us. We're heading to Moscow in April and exploring the metro stations were on our list and after reading your post, I'm even more excited to go visit them. Thanks again 🙂

December 6, 2017 at 10:45 pm

Hi, do you remember which tour company you contacted for this tour?

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Moscow Metro Tour

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Description

Moscow metro private tours.

• 2-hour tour $87:  10 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with hotel pick-up and drop-off
• 3-hour tour $137:  20 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with Russian lunch in beautifully-decorated Metro Diner + hotel pick-up and drop off. 
• Metro pass is included in the price of both tours.

Highlight of Metro Tour

• Visit 10 must-see stations of Moscow metro on 2-hr tour and 20 Metro stations on 3-hr tour, including grand Komsomolskaya station with its distinctive Baroque décor, aristocratic Mayakovskaya station with Soviet mosaics, legendary Revolution Square station with 72 bronze sculptures and more!
• Explore Museum of Moscow Metro and learn a ton of technical and historical facts;
• Listen to the secrets about the Metro-2, a secret line supposedly used by the government and KGB;
• Experience a selection of most striking features of Moscow Metro hidden from most tourists and even locals;
• Discover the underground treasure of Russian Soviet past – from mosaics to bronzes, paintings, marble arches, stained glass and even paleontological elements;
• Learn fun stories and myths about Coffee Ring, Zodiac signs of Moscow Metro and more;
• Admire Soviet-era architecture of pre- and post- World War II perious;
• Enjoy panoramic views of Sparrow Hills from Luzhniki Metro Bridge – MetroMost, the only station of Moscow Metro located over water and the highest station above ground level;
• If lucky, catch a unique «Aquarelle Train» – a wheeled picture gallery, brightly painted with images of peony, chrysanthemums, daisies, sunflowers and each car unit is unique;
• Become an expert at navigating the legendary Moscow Metro system;
• Have fun time with a very friendly local;
• + Atmospheric Metro lunch in Moscow’s the only Metro Diner (included in a 3-hr tour)

Hotel Pick-up

Metro stations:.

Komsomolskaya

Novoslobodskaya

Prospekt Mira

Belorusskaya

Mayakovskaya

Novokuznetskaya

Revolution Square

Sparrow Hills

+ for 3-hour tour

Victory Park

Slavic Boulevard

Vystavochnaya

Dostoevskaya

Elektrozavodskaya

Partizanskaya

Museum of Moscow Metro

• Drop-off  at your hotel, Novodevichy Convent, Sparrow Hills or any place you wish
• + Russian lunch  in Metro Diner with artistic metro-style interior for 3-hour tour

Fun facts from our Moscow Metro Tours:

From the very first days of its existence, the Moscow Metro was the object of civil defense, used as a bomb shelter, and designed as a defense for a possible attack on the Soviet Union.

At a depth of 50 to 120 meters lies the second, the coded system of Metro-2 of Moscow subway, which is equipped with everything you need, from food storage to the nuclear button.

According to some sources, the total length of Metro-2 reaches over 150 kilometers.

The Museum was opened on Sportivnaya metro station on November 6, 1967. It features the most interesting models of trains and stations.

Coffee Ring

The first scheme of Moscow Metro looked like a bunch of separate lines. Listen to a myth about Joseph Stalin and the main brown line of Moscow Metro.

Zodiac Metro

According to some astrologers, each of the 12 stops of the Moscow Ring Line corresponds to a particular sign of the zodiac and divides the city into astrological sector.

Astrologers believe that being in a particular zadiac sector of Moscow for a long time, you attract certain energy and events into your life.

Paleontological finds 

Red marble walls of some of the Metro stations hide in themselves petrified inhabitants of ancient seas. Try and find some!

• Every day each car in  Moscow metro passes  more than 600 km, which is the distance from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
• Moscow subway system is the  5th in the intensity  of use (after the subways of Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai).
• The interval in the movement of trains in rush hour is  90 seconds .

What you get:

• + A friend in Moscow.
• + Private & customized Moscow tour.
• + An exciting pastime, not just boring history lessons.
• + An authentic experience of local life.
• + Flexibility during the walking tour: changes can be made at any time to suit individual preferences.
• + Amazing deals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the very best cafes & restaurants. Discounts on weekdays (Mon-Fri).
• + A photo session amongst spectacular Moscow scenery that can be treasured for a lifetime.
• + Good value for souvenirs, taxis, and hotels.
• + Expert advice on what to do, where to go, and how to make the most of your time in Moscow.

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