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the Vatican Museum the world's biggest museum, to reach the Museum entrance either take the Metro A to Ottaviano and walk down Via Ottaviano, turning right at the second block (Via Germanico, which soon turns into Viale Vaticano).

Alternatively, from Piazza San Pietro walk 10 minutes north along the walls of Vatican City until you come to the entrance; or catch the minibus in front of the tourist information office. It leaves every half hour until 2 pm. 

The Museum hours are Mon-Sat 8.45-1.45; Easter period and July, Aug and Sept Mon-Sat 8.45-4.45.

Last entrance 45 minutes before closing. Closed Sun except last Sun of each month (winter 8.45-1.45, summer 8.45-4.45) when it's free (and packed with Romans); 12 museums, a couple of miles of galleries, the Sistine Chapel, the Raphael's Rooms (Stanze di Raffaello), and the Borgia Apartment.

Unfortunately for you, there isn't much dull museum clutter to pass over lightly, and seeing all 7 km of exhibits would take a life­time.

On the bright side, the Pope sees to it that his museum is managed more thoughtfully than anything run by the Italian state and it recently won an EC award for its arrangements for people with disabilities.

There are two special routes for people in wheel­chairs-just ask the guards at the entrance, and they'll get things organized.

Don't be discouraged as you squeeze down the dangerously narrow pavement, past the shiny denizens of the tour group demi-monde; within the Vatican Museums all is tidy and almost rational.

An impressive double spiral ramp of steps (1932, by Giuseppe Momo) takes you up to the gallery level and the Museums main crossroads, the Atrio dei Quattro Cancelli; from here a door leads into the museums most striking feature, the Cortile del Belvedere, enclosed by twin half-mile long galleries.

Designed by Bramante for Julius II as a great outdoor auditorium, the courtyard has since been subdivided.

The section you can now see is the Cortile della Pigna (named for the monstrously large bronze pine cone, originally part of fountain by the Temple of Isis, and later a landmark on the Portico of Old St Peter's) by the Braccio Nuovo.

If you want to see the fabulous collection of antique sculpture you must first pass through the Egyptian Museum.

Founded by Gregory XVI in the 1830s and housed in earnest, phoney Egyptian rooms, it has the usual mummies, sarcophagi, figurines, monumental statues of gods and pharaohs (the sandstone bust of Mentuhotep II the hemicycle over­looking the Cortile della Pigna, is one of the finest and also the oldest in the museum, c. 2040 BC).

Keeping him company are some bizarre Egyptian deities baboonish Thot with chin on knees and a cooky grin, and the pot-bellied moon­faced Bes.

Most people walk right through Room III without realizing that its contents are Roman imitations of Egyptian art, nearly all made for Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli; so pop back and have a look: the presence of little wolf-headed gods in Logas and a marble Egyptianized statue of his beloved Antinous gives it away, if nothing else.

The next museum, the Chiaramonti Sculpture Gallery is down the stair to the right from the Egyptian Museum. 

This long, dead-end gallery jam-packed with busts, reliefs, and statues-Greek originals, Roman copies, and Roman originals-was founded by Pius VII and arranged by Canova.

It occupies half of Bramante's east gallery and probably should be skipped if you're pressed for time or not a serious student of ancient art.

Otherwise, it's worth a stroll for the nightmarish hypnosis of being watched by a 1000-foot double row of blank eyeballs, A 5th-century BC Greek bust of Athena in section XVI, startles with her keen gaze of ivory and semiprecious stones; she at least can see you, she knows you're really looking for Apollo Belvedere , though you should really hang on for ten minutes and take a wander down the Braccio Nuovo, It was built in 1822.

The first prize is the 3rd-century BC Etruscan-influenced Sarcophagus of L. Cornelius Scipio, taken from the Tomb of the Scipios; the second, excellent Roman copy of Lysippus 4th-century bronze Apoxyomenos  the weary athlete scraping oil from his body after his game. Beyond is the Octagonal Court of the Belvedere, which lent the marble Apollo Belvedere his name; this is a 2nd-century copy of Leochares bronze statue that once stood in the Athenian Agora, and shows the young god, long held as the paragon of male beauty, looking after an arrow he has just shot.

Clockwise, he is  followed by an original relief from Augustus Ara Pacis, and beyond, the famous Laocoon, discovered near Nero's Golden House in 1506.

The Gallery of Statues is the Gallery of Busts (often closed), featuring portraits of Caracalla, the ugly brute (292), Julius Caesar, Augustus as a Youth , the fair Antinous (357) and the seated Jupiter Verospi. Backtracking through the Gallery of Statues you might find the Gabinetto delle Maschere named after the brightly colored theatrical mask mosaics from Hadrian's villa.

Through the animal room to the great octagonal Sala delle Muse, where roman copies of 4th-century BC Greek muses, Apollo, Greek philosopher and writers (Homer, Socrates, Plato, Euripides, etc.)

the next room, the Sala Rotonda is a neoclassical copy of the Pantheon, built around an enormous porphyry basin from the Golden House.

Raphael’s Rooms

Head back down the stairs to begin the quarter mile walk down Bramante's gallery to the old papal apartments and Sistine Chapel.

The popes decorated the interlinking galleries in various styles, which the popes have had decorated in various styles, beginning with the Gallery of the Candelabra, named for the ancient marble pairs of candelabra that stand sentry among its sculpture, with some especially good sarcophagus reliefs.

The next section, the Gallery of the Tapestries is hung with 16th-century tapestries woven to designs by the 'New School' of Raphael-works by his pupils after his death, many based on his drawings. Next comes the equally long Gallery of Maps, with colorful sixteenth century frescoes of Italy's regions and cities and papal territories by a Dominican monk and cartographer Ignazio Danti, painted for Gregory XIII, best known for reforming Caesar's calendar.

The last bit of corridor is the Gallery of Pius V, with 15th-century tapestries from Tournai, including a Last Supper represented as a Renaissance dinner party; the Sobieski room, with a painting of the Polish king who came to the relief of Turk-besieged Vienna in 1683; and lastly, the Hall of the Immaculate Conception. Beyond are the famous Stanze of Raphael.

These small rooms were built by Nicholas V as his private apartments and were originally frescoed by Piero della Francesca, Andrea del Castagno and Benedetto Bonfigli; when Julius II was elected, he hired Signorelli, Sodoma, Lorenzo Lotto, Perugino, and Peruzzi to finish the decoration.

Yet this unique trove of Renaissance art was utterly destroyed when Julius was smitten by the 26-year-old Raphael -as if there wasn't enough empty wall space left to fresco! But the pope wanted nothing less than the most up-to-date interior decoration available, and the sweetheart of the Renaissance obliged by painting some of his greatest master­pieces.

Though a mind-boggling egomaniac, Julius II had whatever mixture of bullying, kindness, and coaxing it took to get the very best from his artists.

Raphael began the Stanze in 1508 and left them unfinished at his death in 1520. Yet in these four little rooms you can trace his progress over his years in Rome, if at least you're prepared to skip back and forth to see them in the order in which they were painted.

The official route begins with the Stanza di Costantino, and runs through the Stanza di Eliodoro and Stanza della Segnatura to the Stanza dell'Incendio. You should begin with the Stanza della Segnatura (where the pope signed his bulls) which contains the very quintessence of the High Renaissance in its celebrated frescoes.

These were Raphael's first works for Julius II (1508-11), and done entirely by his hand. On the long wall, his first fresco, till Disputation on the Holy Sacrament glorifies the triumph of religious truth, and masterfully portrays two zones; the heavenly one shows God the Father, Christ, the Virgin, John the Baptist, and an intermingling of figures from the Old and New Testaments (the latter with haloes).

On the terrestrial sphere, grouped around the altar with a monstrance of the Host, are the Doctors of the Church, popes, bishops, and the faithful, including, on the far left, Fra Angelico, and Dante (with a laurel crown) on the right, and Savonarola, made to play the bad guy in the black hat.

Opposite is the great School of Athens or the triumph of philosophical truth, a painting that has become a symbol for the Renaissance itself.

Set in an imaginary temple, suggested by Raphael's mentor Bramante and by the Baths of Diocletian, the fresco depicts the greatest philosophers and scholars, separated into two camps on either side of the central figures of Plato, holding a copy of Timaeus (perhaps with Leonardo da Vinci's features, though Leonardo's interest in nature would make him more of an Aristotelian) and Aristotle, holding his Ethics.

On Plato's side it's easy to find the snub-nosed Socrates making a point with Alcibiades, dressed in armour, next to the shorter figure of Xenophon.

On the far left, in bearded profile, is Zeno, near Epicurus crowned with vine leaves; in the forefront sits Pythagoras, writing down his harmonic scale with Averroes in a turban and bald Empedocles looking on.

Julius had Raphael add his young hostage, Federigo Gonzaga, seated behind Averroes, and his nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere, the fair youth in white.

No one is quite sure of the identity of the prominent figure with one foot on a block of marble; but the seated figure to the right is Heraclitus, the great pessimist, who didn't appear in the original cartoon and was added by Raphael after half of the scaffolding was taken down from the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Like everyone else in Rome he was astonished, and he paid Michelangelo the sincerest of compliments by painting the philosopher in his style.

On Aristotle's side, Diogenes the cynic sprawls on the steps, while in the fore­ground is Euclid, with Bramante's features, teaching his students; to the right, wearing a crown (a confusion with the Hellenistic dynasty in Egypt) and holding a terrestrial sphere, is the back of Ptolemy, facing Zoroaster, holding a celestial sphere.

To his right stand Raphael himself and Sodoma, the older man in a cap.

Above the window is Parnassus, representing Beauty, with Apollo playing his violin for the Muses and the poets, including on the left Homer, Dante, Virgil, and Sappho, and on the right avid and Boccaccio, and seated, Horace and Pindar.

Across are the Virtues of Fortitude, Temperance, and Prudence, by Raphael, and below, symbolic of Law, Justinian delivering the Pendects by Perin del Vaga, who also had a hand in Gregory IX handing the Decretals to Raymond de Penafort .

The Stanza di Eliodoro, the next room, was painted by Raphael in 1512-14 with subjects chosen by Julius II.

The compositions are more dramatic, more richly coloured: the marvellous Deliverance of St Peter, with its striking night lighting, shows the angel entering the prison, unchaining St Peter, and leading him in the escape.

On the main wall is the Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, which gave the room its name; the incident portrayed is from the Apocrypha, and refers to Julius II's battles to expel foreign powers from the Papal States; Julius Inlay be seen, watching the scene from his litter.

The Mass of Bolsena, over the window, represents the miracle of 1263, when a priest who doubted the truth of transubstantiation celebrated mass and found the Host bleeding; Julius II, in a fine portrait, is seen kneeling on the right.

The fourth fresco, of the Meeting of St Leo and Attila, lacks the verve of the others, and is mostly by Raphael's assistants, who had to change St Leo's face from a portrait of Julius II to Leo X when the latter pope was elected.

Leo X had already been portrayed among the cardinals, so The same fat face appears twice, enough to spoil any painting.

Now nip back to the Stanza dell'Incendio (the papal dining room).

By this time (1514-17) Leo X was pope, and he chose the subject of the great fire in the Borgo, in 847, which stopped when the saintly Leo IV made the sign of the cross.

This was designed by Raphael and painted by his pupils, and shows his tendency towards Mannerism: grand gestures, greater emphasis on the human body as a means of expression, often in difficult poses, and the use of more violent colours. Leo IV has Leo X's fat features; the fresco refers to his efforts to end the flames of war in Italy.

The other frescoes in the room, with far more pupil than Raphael in them, show Leo X playing Leo III at the Coronation of Charlemagne and Leo IV in the Victory over the Saracens, both alluding to related events in the life of Leo X.

The ceiling, by Raphael's master Perugino, is the only original fresco to survive.

The last room, the Stanza di Costantino was painted after Raphael's death by Giulio Romano and other pupils; only the Victory of Constantine over Maxentius was done after the master's sketches.

Beyond this are the Loggie di Raffaello (now only open to scholars with permission) which Raphael built after Bramante's death, also contributing designs for half of the scenes from the Old Testament (hence the Bible of Raphael in contrast with the Sistine Chapel, the Bible of Michelangelo). Executed by his students, especially Giovanni da Udine, the last room collapsed on Alexander's head and almost killed him; Leo X ordered loggie are especially interesting for their grotesque borders, inspired by Raphael's visit to Nero's Golden House. 

Also off the Stanza di Costantino is the Sala dei Palafrenieri (better known as the Sala dei Chiarascuri for its monochrome Raphael-school frescoes) with a beautiful carved ceiling glorifying the Medici, and beyond that, a memory of an earlier, simpler and more pious age, the small Chapel of Nicholas V.

This was closed off and forgotten until someone, counting the windows of the Vatican palace, noted that there was an extra one; inside are rarefied, pastel frescoes by Fra Angelico, on the lives of SS. Stephen (above) and Lawrence (below).

Now walk back (sorry!) to the Stanza dell'lncendio, where a door leads into the Chapel of Urban VIII, lavishly decorated by Pietro da Cortona; a stair leads down to the Appartamento Borgia and Gallery of Modern Religious Art. I

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