Pinacoteca Vaticana, Picture gallery in Vatican City.
The Pinacoteca Vaticana is a painting gallery in Vatican City housing over 450 artworks displayed across eighteen rooms. The collection is arranged chronologically to show the evolution of painting from medieval times through the 19th century, with notable works by Italian masters.
The gallery was established in 1932 under Pope Pius XI to house paintings that had been scattered throughout the Apostolic Palaces. Many works were taken to Paris during the Napoleonic period and were returned to Vatican City following the upheaval of those years.
The collection is limited by tradition to religious subjects. Room II holds Giotto's Stefaneschi Triptych, painted around 1320 for the high altar of old St Peter's, with a predella painted on both sides. Room VIII keeps Raphael's Transfiguration, left unfinished at his death in 1520, and his Foligno Madonna of 1511-1512.
The rooms are maintained with special lighting and temperature controls to protect the artworks from damage. The chronological arrangement allows visitors to follow the evolution of painting naturally as they move through the gallery.
The 1817 return followed the Congress of Vienna's directives, but the gallery only opened to the public in a single wing of the Belvedere Palace on 19 March 1908, before moving to Beltrami's new building in 1932.
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