Capitoline Museums

The Capitoline Museums, spread across two palaces facing each other on the elegant piazza atop the Capitoline Hill, hold the distinction of being the oldest public museum in the world, their collection opened to visitors by the Church in 1734. The piazza itself, the Piazza del Campidoglio, was redesigned by Michelangelo in the 16th century, its star-patterned pavement and matching palace façades, the Palazzo dei Conservatori and Palazzo Nuovo, forming one of the most harmonious Renaissance spaces in Rome; a copy of the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius stands at its centre, the original preserved inside. Visitors descend through a tunnel beneath the square, the Galleria Lapidaria, to move between the two buildings without leaving the museum. Highlights include the Capitoline She-wolf, the bronze sculpture of the wolf suckling Romulus and Remus that has become an emblem of Rome itself, the towering fragments of the Colossus of Constantine including his head and hand, the Dying Gaul, and the Spinario, a bronze boy pulling a thorn from his foot. The picture gallery upstairs holds significant paintings by Caravaggio, including 'The Fortune Teller' and 'John the Baptist', along with works by Titian, Rubens and Guercino. A thorough visit takes two to three hours across both buildings and the underground gallery. The rooftop terrace café offers one of the best panoramic views in Rome, overlooking the Roman Forum, free to reach even without museum entry via a separate lift for café guests. The museums are open daily, unusual for Rome, and free entry applies on the first Sunday of each month, when queues lengthen considerably. Weekday mornings are the calmest time to explore this vast collection.