Vatican Historical Museum, Historical museum in Vatican City

The Vatican Historical Museum occupies the main floor of the Lateran Palace, built to Domenico Fontana's design in 1586. Its ten halls, refurbished under Pope Paul IV, carry Mannerist frescoes on Roman history and biblical themes. The collection includes papal portraits from the 16th century onward, uniforms and flags of the Noble Guard, Palatine Guard and Papal Gendarmerie, and, on the lower floor, the papamobili: carriages, saddles, sedans and the first cars used by popes.

The museum was founded in 1973 and moved to the Lateran Palace in 1987, where it opened to the public in 1991. The transfer to this larger building allowed the collections to be displayed more fully.

The collection brings together objects that were part of daily life at the papal court, from ceremonial dress to weapons and personal items from different centuries. Walking through the rooms gives a sense of how the papal household changed over time.

The museum occupies two wings of the Lateran Palace: the main exhibition rooms on the piano nobile, reached by the frescoed entrance staircase, and the ground-floor annex holding the carriages and motorcars. Plan to visit both floors, since the papamobili are kept separately from the papal portraits and military memorabilia upstairs.

Among the most unexpected objects on display are papal carriages and early motorcars from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, shown on the lower levels. These vehicles give a concrete sense of how papal transport changed before the modern papamobile became familiar worldwide.