Museo delle Cere, Wax museum in Piazza dei Santi Apostoli, Rome, Italy
Museo delle Cere is a wax museum in the historic center of Rome, displaying around 250 life-sized figures of historical personalities, world leaders, and celebrities. The figures are arranged in themed rooms spread across several floors of an old city building.
The museum was founded in 1958 by Fernando Canini, who took inspiration from similar venues like Madame Tussauds in London and Grévin in Paris. It was the first wax figure museum to open in Italy.
The museum displays figures of well-known Italian and international personalities, from artists to heads of state. Walking through the rooms, visitors recognize faces from cinema, politics, and history arranged in themed settings.
The museum is in the old city center of Rome and easy to reach on foot from many nearby landmarks. Plan for about one to two hours to move through all the rooms at a comfortable pace.
In 2022 the MAXXI exhibition "Pier Paolo Pasolini. Tutto è santo" recreated the last meeting of the Fascist Grand Council using twenty-nine wax figures that had once stood in this museum. The scene depicts the session of 24 July 1943, after which Mussolini was arrested; the figures were later removed from the permanent display.
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