Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo’s extraordinary Sistine Chapel is arguably the world’s greatest masterpiece, and the start of the show here. No single artist before or after has ever equalled his powerful vision: the ceiling (1508-12), painted for Pope Julius II, surrounding the famous scene of God creating man, and the much darker, harrowing vision of the Last Judgement (1534-41).

This astonishingly beautiful gallery, located on the west side of the Belvedere Courtyard, features a series of painted topographical maps of Italy, painted over three years by Danti in 1580.

Housing Greek and Roman sculptures; most are copies of lost ancient originals, notably The Apollo Belvedere and Laocoon, which are the stars of the Pio Clementino Museum.

Two original spiral stairways designed by Bramante in 1505 are located on the other side of the museum can be tour by special arrangement.

Superb Etruscan, Greek and Egyptian works fill the Gregorian museums. Large marble fragments from the Athens Parthenon and mosaics from the Baths of Caracalla can also be seen.

Paintings by Giotto, Leonardo, Titian and Caravaggio fill the Pinacoteca (art gallery) along with a single, rare work by Leonardo da Vinci depicting St Jerome in the desert. There’s also a room entirely devoted to Raphael, that includes his The Transfiguration.

These wondrous papal apartments, frescoed by Raphael (including the School of Athens), take their name of Spaniard Rodrigo de Borja y Doms, who was elected as pope following the death of Innocent VIII. Consisting of six monumental spaces, today the Borgia Apartments house part of the Vatican Museums’ Collection of Contemporary Art.