The Vatican Museums, in Viale Vaticano, inside the Vatican City, are among the greatest museums in the world, since they display works from the immense collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries, including some of the most renowned classical sculptures and most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world. Pope Julius II founded the museums in the early 16th century. The Vatican Museums trace their origin to one marble sculpture, purchased 500 years ago. The sculpture of Laocoön, the priest who, according to Greek mythology, tried to convince the people of ancient Troy not to accept the Greeks' "gift" of a hollow horse, was discovered 14 January 1506, in a vineyard near the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. Pope Julius II sent Giuliano da Sangallo and Michelangelo Buonarroti, who were working at the Vatican, to examine the discovery. On their recommendation, the pope immediately purchased the sculpture from the vineyard owner. The pope put the sculpture of Laocoön and his sons in the grips of a sea serpent on public display at the Vatican exactly one month after its discovery.

The MAXXI - National Museum of the 21st Century Arts is a national museum dedicated to contemporary creativity, located in the Flaminio neighbourhood (Via Guido Reni 4). It was designed as a multidisciplinary space by Zaha Hadid and committed to experimentation and innovation in the arts and architecture. The building is a composition of bending oblong tubes, overlapping, intersecting and piling over each other, resembling a piece of massive transport infrastructure. The MAXXI consists of two museums: "MAXXI art" and "MAXXI architecture". It has been acclaimed by The Guardian as "Hadid's finest built work to date" and a masterpiece fit to sit alongside Rome's ancient wonders.

The Borghese Gallery is an art gallery housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana, Piazzale del Museo Borghese 5. The Galleria Borghese houses a substantial part of the Borghese collection of paintings, sculpture and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V (reign 1605-1621). The Villa was built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese himself, who used it as a villa suburbana, a party villa at the edge of Rome. Scipione Borghese was an early patron of Bernini and an avid collector of works by Caravaggio, who is well represented in the collection by his Boy with a Basket of Fruit, St. Jerome, Sick Bacchus and others. Other paintings of note include Titian's Sacred and Profane Love, Raphael's Entombment of Christ and works by Peter Paul Rubens and Federico Barocci.

The National Gallery of Modern Art, is an art gallery dedicated to modern art. It is located at Via delle Belle Arti 113. With its neoclassical and Romantic paintings and sculptures, it marks a dramatic change from the glories of the Renaissance and ancient Rome. Its 75 rooms house the largest collection of works by 19th- and 20th-century Italian artists including Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Giorgio de Chirico, Giovanni Fattori, Amedeo Modigliani, Giorgio Morandi, Giacomo Manzù, Alberto Burri, Antonio Canova and Lucio Fontana. There are also a few notable works by foreign artists, including Calder, Cézanne, Duchamp, Giacometti, Braque, Degas, Wassily Kandinsky, Mondrian, Monet, Jackson Pollock, Rodin, Van Gogh and Klein.