Our guide will take you inside the Vatican Museums before the official opening-time: in this way you will skip the long lines and you will have the chance to admire the impressive beauty of the place.*

Passing through the Court of the Pigna, designed by Bramante in the XVI cent. you will enter inside the Belvedere Palace, of the late XV cent.; in the first room is housed the Apoxyomenos by Lisippo, the only roman copy still existing of this Greek masterpiece. You are now in the heart of the museum, the Belvedere Courtyard. It was here that were placed the first masterpieces of Greek and Roman art exhibited in the Renaissance: the Apollo Belvedere, one of the most famous works of antiquity, and the Laocoon Group, defined by Pliny the Elder "the biggest sculpture known at that time".
Proceeding with the visit you will quickly pass the secondary galleries to reach the room of the Belvedere Torso, work of the I cent. b.C., much admired by the Renaissance artists, expecially Michelangelo. Passing through the round room, with a monumental basin in porphyry in the centre, you will go into the Greek Cross Room where the splendid Sarcophagi of St. Helene and St. Constance are housed.

Walking through the Galleries of the Candelabra, of the Maps and of the Tapestries you will reach the Apostolic Palace, the oldest section of the complex of the Vatican Palaces. Your guide will show you the Apartaments of Julius II, splendidly decorated by Raphael and his assistants and then the Sistine Chapel, where you will admire one of the highest masterpieces of art: the Genesis and the Last Judgement by Michelangelo, that after the last restorations have gained their original splendour.

Leaving the Sistine Chapel and going down the Royal Stairway, projected by Bernini, the guide will conduct you to the Basilica of St. Peter, the most important temple of Christianity, which gathers inside 2000 years of history and famous works of art as the Pietà by Michelangelo.

The visit ends at St. Peter Square, destination of all Catholics coming from all over the world, embraced by the colonnade, architectonic masterpiece by Bernini, under the symbolic protection of the "Cuppolone", as the Romans call Michelangelo's dome.

We remind you that entrance into churches requires appropriate attire (no shorts, miniskirts or uncovered shoulders). It is also advisable to wear comfortable shoe
*From November to March entrance during official opening hours