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How works reached the museums

Excavation, purchase, commissions and forced removals all shaped the collections.

How works reached the museums

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Follow an object's travels and the museum begins to look different. Laocoön came from an excavation. An altarpiece came from a church commission. A painting taken to France could return to papal ownership and enter the Vatican rather than its original chapel.

Objects with different journeys

The Pio Clementino grew through excavations and collecting. Papal purchases and commissions added other objects. The ethnological collection now called Anima Mundi includes material gathered around a missionary exhibition, alongside later work on provenance and relationships with communities. Each object's circumstances need their own history. A collection-wide account cannot tell you how every individual object changed hands.

Removal and return

French removals in 1797 scattered paintings and sculptures. Their returns happened in different years. The Oddi Altarpiece came back after 1815, while the Madonna of Foligno and Transfiguration entered the Pinacoteca in 1816. Caravaggio's Deposition entered after its return in 1817. Pope Pius VII retained the Oddi painting in the Vatican collection. Its old church did not receive it back.

Collections continued to move

Returned sculptures helped prompt the reorganization embodied in the New Wing. Later, Paul VI chose Perugino's Resurrection for his private library. Its exceptional public exhibition in 2023 was another temporary change of setting. Museum ownership and public display have followed different paths even within the Vatican.

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How works reached the museums · 1

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Your own selection. Follow the route instructions and on-site signs between stops; custom combinations have no verified transfer time.

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