Rome: Vatican Museum & Sistine Chapel Entry Experience

Highlights

Inclusions

Itinerary

1. Among the many excellent Vatican Museums is the Museum of Vatican History. In 1973, Pope Paul established the Historical Museum for the first time. The collection was housed in a square garden below ground level. It wasn't until March 1991 that it was once more open to the public, being moved to the Lateran Apostolic Palace's main floor in 1987. Pope Julius II established the Vatican City Museums for the first time in 1503. From the private collections of affluent families, the museum's collection of artworks expanded to include public holdings from the future pope and subsequent popes. The Vatican Museum of History was founded as a result of the vast collection held by the Vatican Museums and the increasing demand for more structures to store the artwork.

   2 hAdmission included

2. The chapel's dimensions are around 35 meters (118 feet) by 14 meters (46 feet)[15], and its ceiling rises to a height of roughly 20 meters (66 feet) above the ground level. Like many other Italian churches from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, its exterior is devoid of any architectural or ornamental accents. It does not have an external facade or exterior processional doors because it has always been accessed through interior chambers of the Apostolic Palace, with the outside only visible through adjacent windows and light wells. The Cappella Maggiore has also been impacted by masonry subsidence and cracking, which has required the construction of enormous buttresses to support the outer walls. The chapel's external look has been further modified by the addition of other structures.

   1 hAdmission included

Cancellation

All sales are final. No refund is available for cancellations.

Reviews

Ratings come from 9 reviews collected by our booking partner. They are travellers' own words, in the order they were written — never reordered to flatter the experience.

Know before you go

How it compares in Rome

• Its from-price is 63% above the median of the 477 attraction tickets we list in Rome.
• Its length is typical for the group.
• By number of reviews it ranks 190 of 477.

About Rome

Rome layers nearly three thousand years of history into one walkable city, from the Colosseum and Forum to Baroque piazzas and Vatican art.

Ancient Rome is still in plain sight. The Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill sit together at the city's heart, the Pantheon still stands with its open oculus, and fragments of temples and aqueducts turn up between apartment blocks. Across the Tiber, Vatican City holds St Peter's Basilica, the Vatican Museums and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Top-ranked sights in Rome: Colosseum, Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel.

See all 8352 experiences in Rome