X-Nico

7 unusual facts about Vatican Museums


1506 in archaeology

On the recommendation of Giuliano da Sangallo and Michelangelo, Pope Julius II purchases it and places it on public display in the Vatican a month later.

Holy Spirit in Christian art

In The Vatican Museum in Rome is a carved stone sarcophagus depicting the Holy Trinity as three bearded men during the creation of Eve.

Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi

The land may have been part of the family’s suburban estates and her grave altar is on display at the Vatican Museums.

Mars of Todi

The sculpture is currently held by the Museo Etrusco Gregoriano of the Vatican.

Peregrinatio ad Petri Sedem

P.A.P.S. organizes guided tours for groups of pilgrims inside the Vatican City and around Christian Rome, especially to the Vatican Museums, Vatican Gardens, Catacombs of Rome and Papal basilicas, Liturgical Celebrations and Audiences with the Pope, and organizes Congresses (on demand), Holy Masses, prayer gatherings and services with full assistance during Beatifications and Canonizations.

Santa Maria in Traspontina

Pope Alexander VI demolished an ancient Roman pyramid on the same site (the Meta Romuli, believed in the Middle Ages to be Romulus's tomb, and portrayed on the bronze doors to St Peter's Basilica and in a Giotto di Bondone triptych in the Vatican Museums) for the construction of the first church.

Vatican Museums

The Collection of Modern Religious Art houses paintings and sculptures from artists like Carlo Carrà and Giorgio de Chirico.


Attilio Nicora

The new agency, by mandate of an Apostolic Letter, is charged with monitoring the monetary and commercial activities of Vatican agencies, such as the Governorate of Vatican City State, the Vatican Bank, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and smaller agencies such as the Vatican Pharmacy, the Vatican Supermarket, and the Vatican Museums.

Cesare Fantetti

Conjointly with Pietro Aquila, he engraved the plates from the paintings by Raphael in the Vatican, called Raphael's Bible, thirty-seven of the series being executed by Fantetti, and the remainder by Aquila.

Jack Levine

In 1973 the Vatican purchased Cain and Abel (1961), to the satisfaction of Pope Paul VI.

Leonard Baskin

His works are owned by many major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Boca Raton Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Udinotti Museum of Figurative Art and the Vatican Museums.

Vincent Malo

Works of Vincenzo Malo are held in the collections of the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti (Genoa), Palazzo Bianco (Genoa), Palazzo Colonna (Rome), Galleria nazionale di Parma (Parma), Vatican Museums (Rome), Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan), the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), Indiana University of Pennsylvania Art Gallery (Indianapolis) .

Zsuzsa Szikra

Art trip to Paris (Louvre and Centre Georges Pompidou) and Rome (Vatican Museums, Rafaello, Michelangelo) And Florence (Uffizi museum), Venice (Guggenheim Museum Venice, Georgione’s La Tempesta), 1977


see also

Giovanni Volpato

Volpato made excavations in Ostia (1779, with the antiquarian Thomas Jenkins), Porta San Sebastiano (1779) and Quadraro (1780); and sold sculptures to king Gustav III of Sweden (1784), to the Vatican Museums, and to the British collector, Henry Blundell.