The world famous Vatican Museums were founded in the 16th century with a group of sculptures that were collected by Pope Julius II (1503-1513).
The Pio-Clementino Museum, was the first Vatican museum founded by Pope Clement XIV in 1771. It began with a collection of Renaissance and ancient art and was later enlarged by Pius VI, Pope Clement's successor, therefore getting its name.
Later, Pius VII considerably expanded the collections of Classical Antiquities, to which he added the Chiaromonti Museum and the "Braccio Nuovo" gallery. He also enriched the Epigraphic Collection, which was conserved in the Lapidary Gallery.
The Etruscan Museum, founded in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846), holds archaeological finds discovered during excavations carried out from 1828 onwards in southern Etruria. Later, he established the Egyptian Museum (1839), which houses ancient artefacts from explorations in Egypt. In 1970 Pope John XXIII (1958-1963), transferred collections from the Gregorian Profane Museum, Pio Christian Museum and the Hebrew Lapidary, to the Vatican where they can be seen today. The collections include ancient sculptures (especially sarcophagus) and inscriptions with ancient Christian content, and 137 inscriptions from ancient Hebrew cemeteries in Rome.
The Vatican Museums also include the Gallery of Tapestries, a collection of various 15th and 17th century tapestries; the Gallery of Maps, decorated under the pontificate of Gregory XIII (1572-1585) and restored by Urban VIII (1623-1644); the Sobieski Room and the Room of the Immaculate Conception; the Raphael Stanze and the Loggia, which were decorated by order of Julius II and Leo X (1513-1521); the Chapel of Nicholas V (1447-1455), painted by Fra Angelico.
The Vatican Pinacoteca, created under Pius XI (1922-1932) is in a special building near the new entrance to the Museums.
The Vatican Historical Museum, founded in 1973 and transferred in 1987 to the Papal Apartment in the Lateran Palace, houses a series of papal portraits along with objects of the past Pontifical Military Corps and of the Pontifical Chapel and Family and historic ceremonial objects no longer in use.