Rome · Viale Vaticano · from the Pigna Courtyard to Michelangelo's ceiling
Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel: tickets, hours and rules
Long galleries lead to one chapel. Here is how to get in, what to wear and what you cannot do once you are there.
Today
Opening hours for every month are on the Opening hours page.
Checked against the official website on 31 October 2026 · Official source
In short
- The Vatican Museums are open Monday to Saturday from 8:00 to 20:00, with last entry at 18:00. The galleries start to empty 30 minutes before closing, so do not arrive in the last hour.
- Sundays are closed, with one exception: on the last Sunday of the month the museums open free from 9:00 to 14:00, with last entry at 12:30. They are also closed on 1 and 6 January, 11 February, 19 March, 1 May, 29 June, 14 and 15 August, 1 November, and 8, 25 and 26 December.
- Cover your shoulders and knees: sleeveless tops, low necklines, shorts, short skirts and hats are not allowed. In the Sistine Chapel you cannot take photos or film, and you must keep silent. Elsewhere photos are fine, but not with flash or a selfie stick.
- Large bags and backpacks go to the free cloakroom before you enter, and everyone passes a metal detector. Children under 7 enter free.
- Short on time? Choose the entry ticket. Want the story behind the rooms? Choose the guided tour. Want the Sistine Chapel and the Basilica on the same day? Choose the tour that includes both.
The Pigna Courtyard: the museums' new old courtyard
The courtyard is named after a giant bronze pine cone that stands in it. It reopened on 6 October 2026 after a restoration that began in 2016: the facades are back to the colour of travertine, and Gio Ponti's marble and alabaster staircase from 1936 can be seen again.
The courtyard goes back to a Renaissance plan by Bramante for Pope Julius II, which joined the old papal palace to the Belvedere.
Laocoon and the Pio-Clementino galleries
The Laocoon is the statue that, in a way, started it all. It was found in Rome on 14 January 1506, and Pope Julius II bought it and showed it in the Vatican about a month later.
The group shows a priest and his two sons fighting off serpents, and the twisting bodies are what people stop to look at. It belongs to the Pio-Clementino collection of ancient sculpture, which was set up in the late 1700s under Popes Clement XIV and Pius VI.
The Raphael Rooms and the Map Gallery
The Raphael Rooms were painted for Julius II and Leo X. The School of Athens, with its philosophers under a vaulted hall, was painted between 1509 and 1511.
The Gallery of Maps is a long corridor whose walls are covered with painted maps of Italy, made for Pope Gregory XIII between 1572 and 1585.
The double spiral staircase
Two spiral ramps wind around each other in the same shaft. The staircase was designed by Giuseppe Momo in 1932, and it is one of the places in the museums where you can stop and take a photo.
The Sistine Chapel: a ceiling you will remember
The chapel was built between 1473 and 1481 for Pope Sixtus IV. Painters such as Perugino, Botticelli and Ghirlandaio frescoed the walls, and Michelangelo painted the ceiling between May 1508 and October 1512.
On the altar wall is the Last Judgment, which was unveiled in 1541. In early 2026 the surface of this fresco was cleaned to remove a whitish film of calcium lactate, and the chapel stayed open while the work went on.
Silence is part of the visit, and so is the ban on photos: put your phone away, look up and take your time.
Visitor guide
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