Pinacoteca

Begin by noticing the shape of a painting. A work divided into panels, a tall picture with a crowd below and a small devotional image once served different kinds of worship. The Pinacoteca brings those objects into a gallery where you can compare them at your own pace. The collection began before this building. Pope Pius VI gathered paintings around 1790. French forces carried many works to Paris after the Treaty of Tolentino in 1797, and their return helped shape a public gallery in the following years. Some paintings came here instead of going back to the churches for which they had been made. This purpose-built home opened in 1932 under Pope Pius XI. Architect Luca Beltrami designed it in the Square Garden area, with the paintings’ lighting and preservation in mind. Its room sequence follows periods and schools of painting. Among its separate subjects are the Stefaneschi Triptych, three altarpieces by Raphael in Room VIII, Leonardo’s unfinished St Jerome in Room IX and Caravaggio’s Deposition in Room XII.