The Gallery

On the first floor of the Apostolic Palace, a museum has been designed with portraits of all the popes from 1500 to the present day; it is accessed from rooms that in the past were both the home of the pope's personal medical staff and the offices of the Vatican Observatory, which until a few years ago was located here before moving to its present quarters in the nearby town of Albano, on the extreme border of the Pontifical Villas.

Walking through the Gallery of Papal Portraits, it is possible to take a historic journey through the pontificates of the last 500 years, from Julius II to Pope Francis: paintings, vestments from various eras, uniforms of the Palatine Guards are elegantly exhibited in rooms that have remained closed to the public for centuries