Early Entry Vatican Tour: Priority Access to Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museums, and St. Peter’s Basilica
- See the Vatican when it first opens
- Led by an art history expert
- Vatican Museums, St. Peter's Basilica, and Sistine Chapel
Our Early Entry Vatican Tour showcases the Vatican’s most important treasures, including the exquisite Sistine Chapel, but without the crush of people that can make any visit here challenging. With the early start time, we’ll be one of the first groups to enter the Sistine Chapel, taking advantage of the relative quiet to get up close and personal (as much as possible) with its world-famous artwork, including Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment.
We’ll then make the trek over to the Vatican Palace, discussing papal history as we start on the ‘percoso classico’, the path to some of the world’s most famous ancient and Renaissance paintings and sculptures. Along the way we’ll make a number of stops, including the Pio Clementino Museum, the Gallery of Maps, the Gallery of Tapestries, and either the Raphael Rooms or the Pinacoteca, connecting the dots between the history and aesthetic significance of these masterpieces as we walk. We’ll end up at St. Peter’s Basilica, where we’ll gaze upon the profound beauty of Michelangelo’s Pietà and survey the church’s celebrated architectural features, before heading out to St. Peter’s Square for a peek at the Swiss Guards.
Simona is a Roman archaeologist specialized in the Late Imperial and Middle Ages periods. She graduated in Archaeology and Ancient History from the Sapienza University of Rome and subsequently obtained her higher degree in Restoration and Heritage preservation. Currently she works as field director on excavations and restorations for the Superintendency of Rome and Latium (Ministry of Cultural Heritage). She is also deeply involved in an international project (CNR) the scope of which is the application of high technology to artefact conservation and ancient structure preservation. Last but not least, Simona also enjoys combining food and archaeology, a passion that grew during her dissertation, in which she studied the majolicas of the Colosseum and the foods that they contained, and how eating habits evolved over time.
Sabrina graduated in Art History at the Sapienza University of Rome and went onto complete a postgraduate degree in History of Medieval and Modern Art. Since 1993 she has worked for some of the most important art museums in Rome, such as the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna. She is very active on the publishing side. Her papers and books focus on 19th and 20th century Roman art. She is vice president of Archivio dell'Ottocento Romano, a cultural association pursuing and promoting scholarly research on the Roman artistic production of the XIX century, and curator of Galleria Prencipe, an art gallery where she organizes 19th century and contemporary art exhibitions, but also courses, conferences and lectures led by eminent specialist art historians and archaeologists.
Rossella, originally from Rome, holds a history of art degree from the University of Rome, and a Master's in conservation and cultural management from the University of Siena. She has worked as a researcher, historian and conservator at a number of prestigious institutions around the world, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In addition to English and Italian, Rossella speaks fluently Spanish and Portuguese. Her interests encompass Restoration to medieval illumination to the effects of time on patina.
