Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo’s ceiling is one of the most spectacular works of art in the world (see Sistine Chapel Works).

Raphael Rooms

Raphael decorated Julius II’s apartments between 1508 and 1520. The Stanza della Segnatura features the School of Athens, a convention of ancient philosophers bearing portraits of Renaissance artists such as Leonardo da Vinci as bearded Plato in the centre.

Apollo Belvedere

This Roman copy of a 4th-century BC Greek statue is considered a model of physical beauty. It inspired Bernini’s Apollo in Galleria Borghese.

Raphael’s Transfiguration

Raphael was labouring on this gargantuan masterpiece (1517–20) when he died at 37, leaving students to finish the base. It depicts Christ appearing to the Apostles in divine glory.

Chapel of Nicholas V

The Vatican’s hidden gem is this closet-sized chapel colourfully frescoed (1447–50) with early martyrs by Fra’ Angelico.

Laocoön

One of antiquity’s most famous sculptures is this 1st-century AD Trojan prophet and his sons being strangled by serpents as they try to warn against the besieging Greeks’ sneaky gift horse.

Caravaggio’s Deposition

Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro technique accentuates a diagonal composition (1604) filled with peasant figures and grisly realism.

Borgia Apartments

Pope Alexander VI had these beautiful rooms frescoed by Pinturicchio (Raphael was once his junior collaborator) between 1492 and 1495. The walls are now hung with lesser pieces from the Modern Art collection.

Belvedere Torso

The highly crafted, bulging muscles of this 1st-century BC torso of the god Hercules were regularly used as a prime sketching model for Michelangelo and many other Renaissance masters.

Leonardo da Vinci’s St Jerome

Sketchy and unfinished – Leonardo was often a distracted genius – this 1482 painting is nevertheless an anatomical masterpiece.

Adam and Eve

God imparts the spark of life to Adam in one of western art’s most famous scenes, then pulls Eve from Adam’s rib.

Creation

God separates darkness from light, water from land and creates the Sun and Moon. Michelangelo veers towards blasphemy by depicting God’s dirty feet.

The Sacrifice, Flood, and Drunkenness of Noah

After disassembling his scaffolding and gazing from floor level, Michelangelo noticed that these three tumultuous scenes were too minutely drawn.

Last Judgment

This vast work identifies saints by their medieval icons: Catharine with her wheel, Bartholomew with the knife which flayed him.

Sibyls and Prophets

Hebrew prophets, including Jonah shying away from the whale, mingle with the Sibyls who foretold Christ’s coming.

Old Testament Salvation Scenes and Ancestors of Christ

Portraits from Jesus’s family tree are above the windows, and bloody Salvation scenes, including David and Goliath, are on corner spandrels.

Life of Christ Scenes

The chapel’s right wall stars Botticelli’s Cleansing of the Leper, Ghirlandaio’s Calling of Peter and Andrew, as well as Perugino’s work.

Giving the Keys to St Peter

Classical buildings form the backdrop to this pivotal scene of transferring power from Christ to the popes. Each scene is divided into three parts.

Life of Moses Scenes

Left wall highlights include Botticelli's Burning Bush and Signorelli and della Gatta’s Moses Giving his Rod to Joshua.

Botticelli’s Punishment of the Rebels

Schismatics question Aaron’s priestly prerogative to burn incense. A vengeful Moses opens the earth to swallow them.

Michelangelo (1475–1564)

Perugino (1450–1523)

Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)

Domenico Ghirlandaio (c.1449–94)

Luca Signorelli (c.1450–1523)

Rosselli (1439–1507)

Fra Diamante (1430–98)

Pinturicchio (1454–1513)

Piero di Cosimo (1462–1521)

Bartolomeo della Gatta (1448–1502)

Pietà

Michelangelo carved this masterpiece (see Michelangelo's Pietà) in 1499 at the age of 25. It is at once graceful and mournful, stately and ethereal. It has been protected by glass since 1972, when a man screaming “I am Jesus Christ!” attacked it with a hammer, damaging the Virgin’s nose and fingers.

The Dome

When Michelangelo designed a dome to span St Peter’s massive transept, he made it 42 m (138 ft) in diameter, in deference to the Pantheon’s 43.3-m (142-ft) dome. You can ride an elevator much of the way, but must still navigate the final 330 stairs between the dome’s inner and outer shell to the 132-m-high (435-ft) lantern and sweeping vistas across the city.

Piazza San Pietro

Bernini’s remarkable semi-elliptical colonnades transformed the basilica’s approach into a pair of welcoming arms embracing the faithful (see Piazza San Pietro). Sadly, the full effect of entering the square from a warren of medieval streets was spoiled when Mussolini razed the neighbourhood to lay down pompous Via della Conciliazione. The obelisk came from Alexandria.

Baldacchino

Whether you view it as ostentatious or glorious, Bernini’s huge altar canopy is at least impressive. Its spiralling bronze columns are claimed to have been made from the revetments (portico ceiling decorations) of the Pantheon, taken by Pope Urban VIII. For his desecration of the ancient temple the Barberini pope and his family (see Palazzo Barberini) were castigated with the waggish quip: “What even the barbarians wouldn’t do, Barberini did.”

Statue of St Peter

A holdover from the medieval St Peter’s, this 13th-century bronze statue by the sculptor Arnolfo di Cambio has achieved holy status. The faithful can be seen lining up to rub (or kiss) Peter’s well-worn foot for luck.

Treasury

Among the ecclesiastical treasures here is a 6th-century, jewel-encrusted bronze cross (the Crux Vaticana), various fragments of the medieval basilica including a ciborium by Donatello (1432), and Antonio Pollaiuolo’s masterful bronze slab tomb (1493) for Sixtus IV, the pope’s effigy surrounded by representations of theological virtues and liberal arts.

Apse

Bernini’s exuberantly Baroque stained-glass window (1666) centres on a dove representing the Holy Ghost, surrounded by rays of the sun and a riot of sculptural details. Beneath the window sits the Chair of St Peter (1665), another Bernini concoction; inside is a wood and ivory chair said to be the actual throne of St Peter. Bernini also crafted the multicoloured marble Monument to Urban VIII (1644) to the right, based on Michelangelo’s Medici tombs in Florence. It is of far better artistic quality than Giuglielmo della Porta’s similar one for Pope Paul III (1549) to the left.

Crypt

Many of the medieval basilica’s monuments are housed beneath the basilica’s floor. During excavations in the 1940s workers discovered in the Necropolis the legendary Red Wall behind which St Peter was supposedly buried. The wall was covered with early medieval graffiti invoking the saint, and a box of bones was found behind it. The late Pope John Paul II is buried in the crypt.

Alexander VII’s Monument

One of Bernini’s last works (1678) shows figures of Justice, Truth, Chastity and Prudence gazing up at the pontiff seated in the deep shadows of the niche. A skeleton crawls from under the flowing marble drapery to hold aloft an hourglass as a reminder of mortality.

Central Piers

Until modern times, a church was measured by its relics. St Peter’s Basilica houses the spear of St Longinius, which jabbed Jesus’s side on the Cross, St Veronica’s handkerchief bearing Christ’s face, and a fragment of the True Cross.