Rome

Libraries and Museums

Italy has more than 2,400 public libraries and 3,442 museums that store and specialize in information. Some institutions circulate only materials that cover a particular field of study—archaeology, ancient art, bio-medics, to name a few. With a history as rich as Rome's, it takes numerous institutions to house and display all the ancient treasures. The following is only a partial list of the many libraries: Accademia Dei Lincei, Accademia di Danimarca, Accademia di Ungheria, Accademia Spagnola di Storia, Biblioteca A. Sarti, Angelica, Casanatense, Comunale Rispoli, Belle Donne, Di Storia Moderna E Contemporaena, Raccolta Teatrale Del Burcardo, Nazionale Centrale, Universitaria Alessandrina, Vallicelliana, Vaticana, British Council, Centro Studi Americani, Fondazione Lelio Basso, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Goethe Institut, Istituto Austriaco Di Cultura, Istituto di Norvegia a Roma, and Istituto Svizzero Di Roma.

Rome also hosts more than 50 different visual art museums and galleries. Not all are inside structures; some museums operate within the very structure they represent, like the Catacombs.

The oldest art collection in Rome, housed in the Capitoline Museum, was established in 1471 and contains exceptional antiquities. Other Roman museums are the National Museum of the Villa Giulia, which has an outstanding collection of Etruscan and Roman art, and is located in the mid-sixteenth-century

country house of Pope Julius II (1443–1513). The Borghese Gallery, a museum of paintings and sculpture is housed in an early seventeenth-century palace. The National Roman Museum, designed by Michelangelo (1475–1564), features exhibits of Greek and Roman sculpture, including the Ludovisi collection of antiquities. Important collections of art and decorative pieces can also be seen in the city's other palaces. Among these are the Farnese Palace, built between 1514 and 1589; the mid-fifteenth-century Venetian Palace, with a noted collection of small renaissance bronzes; and the Palazzo Barberini, a seventeenth-century Baroque palace with a remarkable picture gallery.

The Vatican Museum, Viale Vaticano, is open from March through October and offers student pricing. Archaeological museums tend to be closed on Mondays. Several within the city include Antiquarium Comunale, Museo Barracco Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Capitoline Museums Piazza del Campidoglio, Museo Della Civilta' Romana Piazza Giovanni Angel, Museo Nazionale Romano, and Museo Preistorico ed Etnografico L. Pigorini.

For inspirational art, visitors should see Museo Gregoriano Profano, Museo Pio Clementino, Museo Chiaramonti, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, Museo Storico, Castel Sant'Angelo Museum, National Roman Museum of the Thermae, Museum of Roman Civilization, Natural History Museum, Napoleonic Museum, Palazzo delle Esposizioni Via Nazionale, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Galleria dell; Accademia, Galleria Colonna Via della Pilotta, and Galleria Doria Pamphili.

Museums and monuments to the deceased are also popular places to visit in Rome. One rather unusual place is an eclectic museum devoted to the dead souls trapped in purgatory who leave messages for the living. Admission is free at Museo delle Anime dei Defunti.

Near the Pantheon on Piazza della Minerva is Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. Here lies the body of St. Catherine. After her death in 1380, her body was severed from her head, which remained in Siena, the town of her birth.

The Saint Maria della Concezione's Cappuccini monk cemetery is elaborately decorated with the bones of 4,000 monks and a Barberini princess. Located on Via Vittorio Veneto, it is a place of startling spirituality.