Best Museums
If you don’t want to spoil your holiday in overcrowded museums, Rome is full of wonderful uncrowded museums. These world class museums listed below are usually not crowded, there is no need to skip the line or to buy tickets in advance, you can purchase your ticket directly at the museum’s ticket office.
Capitoline Museums
The world’s first public museum, the vast collections include classical sculpture, Renaissance paintings, and archaeological finds.
National Roman Museum:
Palazzo Massimo alle Terme
One of the world’s most important collections of classical art from the late Republican period to the end of the Roman empire.
Baths of Diocletian
The largest public baths in Imperial Rome.
Palazzo Altemps
A beautiful late 15th century palazzo, housing the best of the Museo Nazionale Romano’s formidable collection of classical sculpture.
Trajan’s Market
Ancient Rome’s version of the modern-day shopping mall, here is the Museum of the Imperial Forums, which contains fragments discovered while excavating the archaeological complex.
Centrale Montemartini
An extraordinary example of industrial archaeology converted into a museum.
National Etruscan Museum:
Museum of Villa Giulia
Italy’s national Etruscan museum houses artefacts from pre-Roman Italian antiquity, particularly from the Etruscan era.
National Gallery of Ancient Art:
Barberini Palace
One of the most beautiful palaces in Rome, built by the city’s great Baroque architects, now home to the National Gallery of Ancient Art, the palazzo contains an important collection of paintings from the 13th to 18th centuries.
National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art
The only national museum in Italy, dedicated to modern and contemporary art, offers a wide array of artworks created between the late 19th century and the second half of the 20th century.
Free museums and churches
In Rome you can visit wonderful churches and sites for free. Don’t miss Michelangelo’s sculptures, Raphael’s frescoes, Caravaggio’s paintings and much more.
Rome’s best museums and churches with free admission:
Pantheon
A striking 2000-year-old temple, now a church, the Pantheon is the best preserved of Rome’s ancient monuments and one of the most influential buildings in the Western world.
Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano
The first Christian basilica built in Rome, it’s still Rome’s official cathedral and the pope’s seat as the bishop of Rome.
Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore
One of Rome’s four patriarchal basilicas, considered to be the largest of the 26 churches in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri
This basilica occupies what was once the central hall of Diocletian’s baths complex, it was originally designed by Michelangelo.
Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli
This basilica houses Michelangelo’s colossal Moses sculpture and the chains that are said to have bound St Peter when he was imprisoned.
Basilica Santa Maria del Popolo
One of Rome’s richest Renaissance churches, with a particularly impressive collection of art, including two Caravaggio’s.
Church of St. Louis of the French
Church to Rome’s French community since 1589, houses a celebrated trio of Caravaggio paintings.
Santa Maria della Pace
This small baroque church by Pietro da Cortona houses the celebrated Raphael fresco, Sibyls.
Chiesa del Gesù
An imposing example of Counter-Reformation architecture, Rome’s most important Jesuit church is a fabulous treasure trove of baroque art.
Museo Barracco di Scultura Antica
This little-known museum, one of the few in Rome that’s free to enter, boasts a small but interesting collection of early Mediterranean art.
Museo della Repubblica Romana
This small museum gives the background to Garibaldi and his followers, and their role in Italian history.
Porta San Paolo
Remarkably well-preserved gate in the 3rd-century Aurelian Walls, today, it houses a small museum dedicated to the history of Via Ostiense.
VR tours
Learn more about Rome with new technologies: light shows, virtual reality and apps.
Viaggio nei Fori | Forum night show
Multimedia journeys through ancient history in the Roman Forum. Two outdoor spectacles with music, light projections and historical commentary.
Welcome to Rome
Spectacular video projections on the walls, ceiling and floor accompanied by a narrative voice, you will be able to go through the fundamental stages that have brought Rome to become the city we know today.
Caracalla 4D
Baths of Caracalla virtual reality.
The Ara as it was
A multi-medial tale in which history and technology come together to create a fully immersive and multi-sensorial experience of the Ara Pacis.
Nolli App
One of the greatest maps of all time on your iPhone and iPad. Navigate the Rome of today with this map from 1748.