Vatican Museums

The Friday night openings of the month of October will be enriched by a unique selection of cultural initiatives located in evocative historical locations. These events will take place from 08.30 p.m. to 09.30 p.m. The admission ticket to the Vatican Museums Night openings enables admission to these events.

"Che c'è di Bello?", is the title of the events programme. It is a special invitation not only to all tourists, Italian and foreign, for whom the Vatican Museums are a must whilst in Rome, but also -and above all- to all the Roman public, normally too busy to visit the Museums during the day.

Thus the night visits become the occasion when the "Vatican Museums are handed back to the Romans", as the Director, Professor Antonio Paolucci, stated when inaugurating the cultural initiative, adding: "Music, poetry, the arts together are inseparable. Those who are not convinced have only to enter the Room of the Signatura, decorated by Raphael, where they will encounter Apollo Citaredo, the young god playing the lyre, and the allegory of the poets of all time: Petrarch, Dante, Sannazzaro. Art is always numine afflato, inspired by God. This message is handed down to us directly from the year of grace, 1509. Art is one, inseparable and in no other place in the world is this evident as in this site. Raphael and Michelangelo are present, as well as the continuous dialogue with architecture, and the eternal presence of the Roman sky. Beauty is everywhere and penetrates everything, like a cat wandering through the Vatican Gardens [...], in the Choir singing of the Moscow Cathedral, the "Third Rome", or in the airs of Il Trovatore or in the pages of Charles Péguy".
Art is explained by art, through a harmonious dialogue between music, words and dance, which will astonish visitors, and still more for some, during their excursion through the museum, allowing themselves to be spellbound and educated by an event that is powerfully emotional.