Vatican_Museums

The Vatican Museums (Italian: Musei Vaticani; Latin: Musea Vaticana) are the public museums of Vatican City, enclave of Rome. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of the most well-known Roman sculptures and most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world. The museums contain roughly 70,000 works, of which 20,000 are on display, and currently employ 640 people who work in 40 different administrative, scholarly, and restoration departments.Pope Julius II founded the museums in the early 16th century. The Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling and altar wall decorated by Michelangelo, and the Stanze di Raffaello (decorated by Raphael) are on the visitor route through the Vatican Museums.In 2022, the Vatican Museums were visited by 5,080,866 persons, 215 percent more than in 2021, but still below pre-COVID attendance. They ranked second in the List of most-visited art museums in the world after the Louvre, third on the list of most-visited museums and sixth on the list of largest art museums.There are 24 galleries, or rooms, in total, with the Sistine Chapel, notably, being the last room visited within the Museum.