Vatican Museums

This enormous building with over 1400 rooms holds the collection of antiquities, the most outstanding in the world. The collection is gathered in the Pio Clementino Musuem and the Chiaramonti Museum while the great Italian and European collection of paintings is kept in the Vatican's art gallery, where you can follow the development of art through the centuries.

The Laocoon Group 2nd century BC (shown above).

This magnificent group was found in 1506 in the ruins of Nero's Golden House.

It represents the Trojan Priest with his two sons being crushed to death by snakes as a penalty for warning the Trojans about the wooden horse. The human pain and moral suffering are depicted with great pathos. This masterpiece exercised a powerful influence on Renaissance statuary.

Transfiguration By Raphael  

In Raphael's last work, Christ is bathed in supernatural light, rising to the heaven accompanied by Moses and the Prophet Elijah, while the apostles lie terrorized on the ground. This admirable work was given new splendor after its recent restoration.  

Apollo del Belvedere  

Among the finest Vatican's classical statues, is the Apollo Belvedere, a Roman copy in marble from a 4th century Greek bronze statue.