Capitoline Museums

In 1471 Pope Sixtus IV donated a group of ancient bronzes to the people of Rome, on the condition they be displayed publicly on the Capitoline Hill — a gesture usually credited as the founding moment of the modern public museum, predating the Louvre by three centuries. Michelangelo redesigned the piazza and the two flanking palaces (Palazzo dei Conservatori and Palazzo Nuovo) in the 1530s, and the museums have occupied that same trapezoidal square, Piazza del Campidoglio, ever since.

The collection's icon is the Capitoline Wolf, a bronze she-wolf suckling the infants Romulus and Remus — for centuries thought to be Etruscan work from the 5th century BC, though modern dating suggests the twins were added in the Renaissance and the wolf itself may be medieval, a reminder that even Rome's founding myths keep getting re-dated. Nearby stands the original gilded bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, moved indoors in 1981 after air pollution began eating away at it (a replica now stands in the piazza outside).