Lentorama 2026: Hic es: aedificia Vaticani

Day 7 - Chiaramonti Museum

Housed in a loggia connecting the Palace of the Belvedere to the Vatican Palace is this museum, named for Pope Pius VII (Chiaramonti was his pre-papal surname). It is part of the Vatican Museums, others of which will show up here eventually.

In the 1797 Treaty of Tolentino, the Vatican had to cede a large part of its art holdings to France. To make up for the loss, local antiquaries and archaeologists working in the Papal States helped to amass a new collection, which took up residence in this museum upon its 1806 opening. The sculptor Antonio Canova took on a leading role in developing the museum and its collection, focusing on what he saw as the "three sister arts" of sculpture, architecture, and fresco.

The museum boasts over 1000 works of ancient sculpture. The new wing features the Augustus of Prima Porta, a full-length sculpture of the Roman emperor found during excavations on the site of his third (and last) wife's villa. The museum is also noted for the Galleria Lapidaria, a collection of several thousand stone tablets and inscriptions, which is generally only accessible by researchers.