Galleria Borghese houses a previously private art collection of the Borghese family, Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia is home of the world’s largest Etruscan art collection, and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna houses many Italian masterpieces as well as a few pieces by artists such as Cézanne, Modigliani, Degas, Monet and Van Gogh. The Capitoline Museums in the Colosseo district opens their doors to the city’s most important collection of antique Roman and Greek art and sculptures. Visit the Galleria d’Arte Antica, housed in the Barberini palace in the Modern center, for Italian Renaissance and Baroque art.

A visit to Rome is not complete without a trip to the Vatican Museums. You’ll need to go to the museums if you want to see the Sistine Chapel, but there is an enormous collection. You cannot miss any part of it, such as the tapestries, the maps and the rooms painted by Rafael as they are en route to the Sistine Chapel but there is much, much more to explore, including a stunning Egyptian collection and the Pinacoteca, which includes a “Portrait of St. Jerome” by Leonardo da Vinci and paintings by Giotto, Perugino, Raphael, Veronese and Caravaggio, to name just a few. Not to mention the countless, ancient statues…

Rome’s National Museum at the Baths of Diocletian in the Modern Center has a vast archaeological collection as does the national museum at Palazzo Altemps, close to piazza Navona. Further afield, the Museo della Civiltà Romana (Museum of the Roman Civilisation), in the EUR, is most famous for an enormous model of Imperial Rome but it is also home to an extensive display of plaster casts, models and reconstructions of statues and Roman stonework.

If you have plenty of time there is absolutely no shortage of other museums covering a wide variety of interests. Examples include the Museum of the Walls (see Rome/South), the Musical Instrument Museum and a museum devoted to the liberation of Rome from the German occupation in the Second World War (Rome/Esquilino-San Giovanni).

Check museum opening hours before heading there. Government museums are invariably closed on Mondays, so that is a good day for other activities. The Rome municipality itself operates some 17 museums and attractions. Info at. These are free to European Union citizens under 18 and over 65.