Vatican Library Museums

The small objects in these collections ask for a different pace from a wall-sized painting. Glass, carved ivory, enamels and scientific instruments have details that can disappear in a quick glance. Choose one case and first consider what an object was made to do. These museum galleries grew under the care of the Vatican Apostolic Library. They include the Christian Museum and Profane Museum, with older collections of religious objects, secular antiquities and artistic donations. Their settings developed along the western side of the Belvedere, in rooms and galleries with their own papal decoration. In 1999, responsibility for these museum spaces passed to the Vatican Museums, with their traditional names and historical arrangements retained as far as possible. The Library’s research reading rooms operate through a separate admission process. Here, you are looking at the museum collections associated with that institution, including objects once used in worship, study and daily life.