They house masterpieces such as the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius, the Capitoline Wolf, the Dying Gaul, the Bust of Medusa by Bernini, ancient sculptures, paintings (with works by artists such as Caravaggio, Titian, Pietro da Cortona, Guercino, Velázquez, Rubens), coins, jewelry and archaeological finds.

Sixtus IV chose to house the bronzes on the Capitoline Hill, then dominated by the ancient Palazzo Senatorio, also built on the remains of the Tabularium, home of the Roman archives.

[11] In 1513, two colossal statues of river gods, found in the Baths of Constantine (Rome) at the Quirinale, were placed next to the entrance to the palace: these sculptures from the era of Trajan were added in 1588-1589, to those that already decorated the monumental staircase leading to the Palazzo Senatorio.

Complete expressions of sculpture with a historical subject in Roman art, they serve to underline the ideal continuity between the ancient world and the Renaissance in the Campidoglio.

[14] In 1541, on the main facade of the courtyard, in a niche overlooking the entrance, a large statue of Athena was installed, discovered and donated to the civil magistracy at the time of Paul III.

Michelangelo, according to the testimony of Onofrio Panvinio, contributed himself to the recomposition of the fragments found and to their architectural presentation in the Campidoglio: the Fasti Capitolini, transferred in 1583 from the current room of the Louvre, were then recomposed according to the artist's design while undergoing, on this occasion, profound modifications.

[15] In 1566, Pius V donated a lot of thirty statues from the Palazzo del Belvedere (Vatican), considering it inappropriate for the successor of Peter (apostle) to keep pagan idols in his home.

A considerable number of works of art thus arrived at the Campidoglio, where they enriched the "statuario", subsequently transferred to the ground floor of the Palazzo dei Conservatori.

Some statues are placed on the former bell tower of Palazzo Senatorio and on the facade of the same building, thus realizing Michelangelo's project, as documented by the engravings of Étienne Dupérac.

In 1733, under Pope Clement XII (1730-1740), the museum purchased the collection of Cardinal Alessandro Albani, including important pieces such as the Satyrs of the Valley, the Juno Cesi and a statue of Antinous found in Hadrian's villa, but also a series of portraits preserved today in the Hall of Emperors and Philosophers.

The transfer of the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy to Rome in 1870 and the events of the end of the century marked a fundamental stage in the life and development of the city that led to the transformation and expansion of the museums of the Campidoglio.

The works are distributed in the rooms according to their original context, favoring a more careful reading of the archaeological data rather than an inspirational vision more linked to the aesthetic value of the sculptures as masterpieces of ancient art.

The six states that were already members of the European Coal and Steel Community took part in it, namely Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, which, after the success of this latter treaty, decided to expand their cooperation agreements to other sectors.

In 2016, the museum enclosed several of its nude statues in white-colored wooden panels ahead of a meeting between Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi that it hosted.

Thanks to the few but evocative original fragments, preserved in the courtyard of Palazzo dei Conservatori, it was possible to reconstruct the statue in its imposing entirety, at the end of an archaeological, historical and functional analysis of the pieces, supported by the reading of literary and epigraphic sources.

The Palace in this position was erected by Pope Nicholas V. Michelangelo Buonarroti, who had been commissioned to carry out the overall redevelopment of the square, designed the new façade, which he did not, however, see completed as he died during the works (in 1564).

The credit for the creation of the Art Gallery must be shared between the pontiff Benedict XIV and his secretary of state, Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga, one of the main patrons and collectors of eighteenth-century Rome.

Administered, in the first hundred years of its life, by the pontifical structures of the Camerlengato and the Sacred Apostolic Palaces, the Capitoline Art Gallery has been under the jurisdiction of the Municipality of Rome since 1847.

The collection contains paintings by Caravaggio, Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, Guercino, Mattia Preti, Pietro da Cortona, Domenichino, Giovanni Lanfranco, Dosso Dossi and Garofalo.

The internal space on the ground floor hosts a portico with large statues (such as that of Minerva or Faustina the Elder-Ceres), which once belonged to the Vatican Belvedere Collection and were later donated to the city of Rome.

During the pontificate of Clement XI, a series of statues found in the area of the Villa Verospi Vitelleschi (Horti Sallustiani) were acquired, which decorated the Egyptian pavilion built by the emperor Hadrian.

Among the most representative works are a large bell-shaped krater from Hadrian's Villa and a series of animals symbolizing the most important Egyptian deities: the crocodile, two cynocephali, a sparrowhawk, a sphinx, a scarab, etc.

The first room contains numerous portraits of Roman private individuals, among which one stands out, perhaps that of Germanicus Julius Caesar or his father Drusus the Elder; the cinerary urn of T. Statilius Aper and Orcivia Anthis; the Sarcophagus with reliefs depicting an episode from the life of Achilles.

The Gallery, which runs longitudinally along the first floor of the Capitoline Museum, connecting the various rooms and offering visitors a large and varied collection of statues, portraits, reliefs and epigraphs arranged by the eighteenth-century Conservatories.

The Severan dynasty is also well represented with portraits of Septimius Severus, Geta, Caracalla as well as those of Heliogabalus, Maximinus Thrax, Trajan Decius, Marcus Aurelius Probus and Diocletian.

Among the many characters of the Greek world, some portraits from the Roman era are also exhibited; among these Marcus Tullius Cicero, the famous statesman and man of letters, depicted as a little over fifty years old in the prime of his intellectual and political faculties.

The large portal that opens into the long wall communicating with the Gallery, designed by Filippo Barigioni in the first half of the eighteenth century, is arched, with two winged Victories of fine workmanship.

Purchased in 1734 by Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi by Alessandro Gregorio Capponi, president of the Capitoline Museum, it was mistakenly believed to portray a gladiator in the act of falling on his shield and became perhaps the most famous work in the collections, replicated several times in engravings and drawings.

The Gaul is surrounded by other Roman copies of Greek originals of notable quality: the Wounded Amazon, the statue of Hermes-Antinous (purchased by Cardinal Albani from Pope Clement XII around 1734, from Hadrian's Villa), and the Satyr at Rest (from an original by Praxiteles of the 4th century BC, donated by Pope Benedict XIV to the Capitoline Museums in 1753), while against the window, the delightful rococo group of Cupid and Psyche symbolises the tender union of the human soul with divine love, according to a theme dating back to Platonic philosophy which enjoyed great success in artistic production since early Hellenism.

Then there are the busts of the caesaricide Marcus Junius Brutus and the Macedonian leader Alexander the Great (marble, Roman copy of a Hellenistic original made between the 3rd and 2nd century BC approximately).