Moments from Capitoline Museums

Founded in 1471 when Pope Sixtus IV donated a group of ancient bronze statues to the people of Rome, the Capitoline Museums claim a genuine title as the world's oldest public museum, a collection that predates the very idea of a museum as we now understand it by centuries. The buildings themselves sit on Michelangelo's redesigned Piazza del Campidoglio atop the Capitoline Hill, one of Rome's original seven hills and the ancient seat of Roman civic and religious power, so you're standing on the ground the whole city grew from before you've seen a single artwork.

The collection's signature piece is the Capitoline Wolf, the bronze she-wolf nursing Romulus and Remus that has stood as an emblem of Rome for centuries (the wolf figure itself is ancient, though the twin infants were added in the Renaissance). Don't skip the underground Tabularium passage connecting the two main palazzi, it offers one of the best unobstructed views over the Roman Forum anywhere in the city, effectively free with admission and often nearly empty compared to the Forum's own crowded walkways below. Go slowly through the sculpture halls; this is where you'll find the actual Roman originals that countless later copies, scattered through museums worldwide, were made from.