Vatican Museums and St. Peter's Basilica Private Tour

The tour itinerary can be personalized according to any visitors’ special request.The standard schedule includes all most important museum sections.
The first step of this tour includes a detailed visit of the main sections of the Vatican Musuems, then a visit into the Sistine Chapel follows. The tour ends to visit the Saint Peter's Basilica.

THE ITINERARY inside the Vatican Museums

This tour starts in the Cortile della Pigna, also called the Courtyard of the Pinecone, which gets its name from the enormous bronze Pinecone dated back to Roman period. The Pinecone originally decorated a fountain in the Roman baths of Agrippa. Always in this court yard, visitors can admire a pair of bronze Roman peacocks from Hadrian’s mausoleum which stand on either side of the Pinecone. While in the Courtyard of the Pinecone, the guide will focus his explanation on the main architectural elements of the Vatican Palaces located all around the couryard and talk about the buildings history.
The next step is at the Belvedere Courtyard represents a very important portion of the Vatican Museums Greco-Roman section housing famous antiquities such as the Laocoon statue and the Apollo Belvedere. The Laocoon depicts an ancient Greek story of a Trojan priest and his two sons, killed by sea serpents during the Trojan war. This sculpture was especially popular in the Renaissance as many great artists studied its anatomy. The Apollo Belvedere represents the Greek god Apollo, this statue has been considered the greatest sculpture of ancient classic times.

In the Room of the Muses some other important sculptures are displayed; in particular the guide will drive the visitors’ attention to the Torso del Belvedere - a celebrated fragment of an ancient Greek statue by Apollonius. Actually, this sculpture is especially famous because Michelangelo studied it for its accurate anatomy. The influence this sculpture had on Michelangelo can be clearly recognized in Michelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel. The likeness to the Christ is very evident especially in the construction of the anatomical twisting of his body.
The following tour step is the Round Room where visitors can admire the Bust of Zeus, the golden statue of Hercules, Hadrian’s statue, and the enormous porphyry tub that was originally in Nero’s Golden House. The size of this tub gives visitors an idea of how the famously indugent Roman ruler lived.
The tour continues in the Greek Cross Room where two porphyry sarcophagi belonging to Saint Constance and to Saint Helen, the daughter and mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great who legalized Christianity are displayed.

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