The Most Beautiful Places in Vatican City
8 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Vatican City are Pietà (Michelangelo), St. Peter's Basilica and Laocoön and His Sons. The list covers 8 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Vatican City is the smallest state in the world, yet for five centuries popes commissioned the best artists of their age to work within its walls. The result is a concentration of Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces with no parallel: Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael and Bernini all shaped this one small hill, and the papal collections gathered antiquities that defined European taste.
Michelangelo is everywhere. His Pietà, carved before he was twenty-five, is the only work he ever signed, his name cut across the Virgin's sash. Above, he painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512 and returned decades later for the Last Judgment on the altar wall. He also designed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, the largest church in Christendom, built over the traditional tomb of the apostle Peter.
Bernini gave the place its theatre. His colonnade wraps Saint Peter's Square in two curving arms, and the Scala Regia uses columns that close in and steps that narrow to make a staircase seem longer and grander than it is. Inside the Vatican Museums, the Laocoön, an ancient marble of a priest and his sons strangled by serpents, caused a sensation when it was unearthed in Rome in 1506. Two staircases share Bramante's name: his original double-helix ramp of 1505, built so people and pack animals could pass without meeting, and the famous 1932 spiral by Giuseppe Momo that echoes it.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pietà (Michelangelo) | Sculpture | |
| 2 | St. Peter's Basilica | Church building | |
| 3 | Laocoön and His Sons | Sculpture | |
| 4 | Sistine Chapel | Church building | |
| 5 | Bramante Staircase | Stairs | |
| 6 | Vatican Museums | Museum | |
| 7 | Saint Peter's Square | Square | |
| 8 | Scala Regia (Vatican) | Stairs |
01 Pietà (Michelangelo)
Pietà vaticana
Vatican City · 2.4 km from Rome41.902° N 12.453° E
Michelangelo · CC BY-SA 2.0 Michelangelo was in his early twenties when he carved the Pietà, and it made his name.
Did you know? The group measures about 174 cm high and 195 cm wide, carved from a single block of Carrara marble.
02 St. Peter's Basilica
Basilica di San Pietro
Vatican City · 2.4 km from Rome41.902° N 12.453° E
Alvesgaspar · CC BY-SA 4.0 Michelangelo took over as chief architect of St. Peter's in 1546, at 71 years old, and worked on it until his death eighteen years later — but he never saw the dome finished, and that appears to have been deliberate.
Did you know? Bramante's original plan was an enormous Greek cross, with four arms of equal length.
03 Laocoön and His Sons
Gruppo del Laocoonte
Vatican City · 2.4 km from Rome41.907° N 12.454° E
Alvesgaspar · CC BY-SA 4.0 Laocoön and His Sons is the marble group that launched the Vatican Museums. It was dug up in early 1506 in a vineyard on the Oppian Hill in Rome, and Pope Julius II sent Giuliano da Sangallo to look at it; Michelangelo went too.
Did you know? The outstretched right arm that the priest held for centuries was a restoration made by Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli in 1532.
04 Sistine Chapel
Cappella Sistina
Vatican City · 2.3 km from Rome41.903° N 12.454° E
Image by waldomiguez from Pixabay Few rooms on earth are as familiar before they are entered.
Did you know? After Michelangelo's death, Daniele da Volterra was hired to paint draperies over the nudes, earning the nickname 'Il Braghettone', the breeches-maker.
05 Bramante Staircase
Vatican City · 2.4 km from Rome41.906° N 12.454° E
Image by 16692474 from Pixabay Two spiral staircases in the Vatican Museums share Bramante's name, and they are four centuries apart. The original was built in 1505 by Donato Bramante inside a square tower of the Belvedere palace of Pope Innocent VIII.
Did you know? Momo's ramp is clad with bronze panels in low relief by the sculptor Antonio Maraini, cast at a foundry in Florence.
06 Vatican Museums
Musei Vaticani
Vatican City · 2.4 km from Rome41.906° N 12.454° E
Image by gullah from Pixabay The Vatican Museums grew from a single statue. In January 1506 the Laocoön group was dug up in a vineyard in Rome; Pope Julius II sent Michelangelo and Giuliano da Sangallo to look at it, bought it, and put it on show in the Vatican a month later.
Did you know? The Sistine ceiling is a shallow barrel vault about 35 metres long, and Michelangelo's final scheme for it contains more than 300 figures.
07 Saint Peter's Square
Piazza San Pietro
Vatican City · 2.1 km from Rome41.902° N 12.457° E
Diliff · CC BY-SA 3.0 St. Peter's Square is the great forecourt of St. Peter's Basilica, and one of the most successful pieces of urban theatre ever made.
Did you know? According to a popular story, a sailor named Benedetto Bresca saved the raising of the obelisk by shouting "Water on the ropes!" just as the strained ropes were about to give way.
08 Scala Regia (Vatican)
Scala Regia
Vatican City · 2.2 km from Rome41.903° N 12.455° E
Sailko · CC BY 3.0 The Scala Regia is the ceremonial staircase of the Vatican, linking the Apostolic Palace with St Peter's Basilica, and one of the cleverest pieces of architecture of the Roman Baroque.
Did you know? Bernini was paid 7,000 scudi for the Constantine, and payment records name no other sculptor, suggesting he carved it almost entirely himself.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Vatican City?
- On our list, Pietà (Michelangelo) ranks first, followed by St. Peter's Basilica and Laocoön and His Sons.
- Why is Michelangelo's Pietà behind glass?
- In 1972 a man attacked the statue with a hammer, breaking off the Virgin's arm and damaging her face. After restoration it was placed behind a protective panel.
- Who painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling?
- Michelangelo, between 1508 and 1512, at the commission of Pope Julius II. He later painted the Last Judgment on the altar wall, finished in 1541.
- What is special about the Bramante Staircase?
- Bramante's original stair of 1505 is a double helix, two intertwined spirals that let people go up and down without crossing. The better-known 1932 staircase by Giuseppe Momo borrows the same idea.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Vatican City?
- In our collection, the places in Vatican City are most often churches (2), sculptures (2), staircases (2) and squares (1).
- How many places are on this list in Vatican City?
- The list covers 8 places.